


At last

by throwmetomorrow



Category: Black Widow (Movie 2020), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Grief, No Infinity War, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Stuck in the past, Therapy, Trauma, at least not yet, modified MCU-verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23252962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throwmetomorrow/pseuds/throwmetomorrow
Summary: Two years after the fallout of the Civil War, the Steve Rogers-led pack of Avengers are allowed to come back home from their Wakanda hideout. During their exile, things had happened between Steve and Natasha that almost destroyed their relationship. In the aftermath of these events, finally understanding that the consequences of what she had experienced make her lose control and hurt the people close to her, Natasha made a decision to undergo a deep therapy to recover from past trauma back from the time she was a young agent of Russian special services. While she is struggling to make sense of what has been done to her, what she has done to others, and who does that make her now, Steve is looking on and sympathetically struggling along with her - compassionate about her anguish, but also increasingly confused about her place in his life.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 21
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set in a post-Civil War world in my modified MCU-verse. At the point of the story the verse acknowledges most of the things that happened up to Civil War, notably to the exclusion of Natasha and Bruce's subplot in Ultron, because well, what can I say. #cringe  
> Natasha's backstory also deviates to a large extent from what has been shown, told or implied at in the MCU, but this is something that I can hopefully provide in-story clarifications for.

Those were three long months since the fugitive Avengers had been allowed to return to America.

And now there it was, the big victory celebration day, approaching like a bullet, accelerating its speed in a manner that befitted this strange century’s cutting-edge technologies.

For too many a reason to care to even begin to list them, Steve wasn’t overly enthusiastic about making all this fuss about their team gaining the upper hand in the recent fight on the other side of the Mexican border. 

True, he did understand why people would consider the event so huge. After all, it was the first time after the events of what had gone down in history as the so-called Civil War that the helpless government, largely encouraged by Tony Stark, reached out to the Avengers, now a pack of Wakanda-endorsed outlaw vigilantes, to seek their assistance in taking down an enemy the state was apparently unable to defeat by itself, and definitely not as efficiently. 

He also did understand why Tony would make such a big deal of it, in his awkward, your typical Stark attempts at redeeming himself for letting the Avengers down and choosing his need for control and illusion of power over companionship and loyalty. It wasn’t enough to just drop all the charges of ‘unlawful conduct’ that had been placed on the Steve side of the team since the infamous strife and to invite them back home. No, it had to be this pompous welcome party with a lot of hand-shaking with the world’s hugest, flimsiest politics players, and inspired speeches about cooperation and team spirit from the people who had done just about everything they could come up with to crush any ideas of cooperation and team spirit within a group of people who had been no less than proud to have been entrusted with catering to the world’s security and peace. 

So yes, Steve understood it all. Over the course of his life in the 21st century, it would seem, Steve Rogers had generally become a quite understanding man. He usually didn’t even let it show how great a challenge it usually was for him, one that fighting aliens, mingling with Norse gods and escaping jurisdiction of your friends couldn’t compete with. 

Alas, he also had to be there at that party. He was the centerpiece of the whole attraction. As the ever-so-helpful Nick Fury had explained to him with his innate consideration, the diplomatic potential of bringing the Avengers and SHIELD (the part that had survived the HYDRA infiltration) back swinging into the good graces of this country’s decision-makers would effectively be squandered without Captain Rogers’ presence front and center. Apparently, getting used to this whole politics thing, maybe even getting ‘better’ at it – better by this modern world’s standards, obviously – was also a part of becoming an understanding man. 

In case this wasn’t a convincing enough reason, Steve also had the more personal stakes that compelled him to go – as the lovable jab by Natasha had it, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t. This time, again, it was about Bucky (“It started with Barnes and it’s going to end with Barnes, I really do hope at least I won’t be finding Barnes in my fridge in the meantime”, went another quip courtesy of Natasha, and Steve didn’t bother to reveal to her that he actually had promised he would be with Bucky till the end of the line). 

Bucky, who had first left this country seventy years ago, risking everything to defend it, only to encounter a fate worse than death, and then be faced with hostility instead of trust and compassion that would have been the surest assistance in overcoming his Winter Soldier conditioning. Now, that was what they called America’s debt of gratitude for their men’s loyal service. 

Luckily, not everyone had turned their back on the tortured (in more than one way) sergeant Barnes, giving him a second chance to prove himself, and prove he really was back. Deprogrammed and healed in Wakanda, Bucky, or the White Wolf as he was proud to call himself after the therapeutic stay at his new African home, had been instrumental in their overcoming the Mexico crisis, demonstrating once and for all that he was both skillful and tenacious, but more importantly – brave and selfless. Steve himself now owed his life to Bucky many times more after that Mexican mission. It all went to show that Bucky was a hero, not a criminal, who had more than earned his belated amnesty, and deserved to be finally welcomed back in America with all the honors. 

And it were precisely those honors that made the deplorable celebration mean so much in Bucky’s context. It was there that Bucky was supposed to be reintroduced to the wider public as their benefactor and rescuer, and as a proof to receive a medal of valor. The appearances sounded clearly wonderful, but they were just that: appearances, beneath which a silent confrontation with a judgmental crowd and its harsh looks may have been awaiting Steve’s dear friend. Steve knew he had to be there for him also, or maybe especially, on moments like these, having his back and keeping him out of harm’s way, by harm meaning also the self-loathing and shame that all these dirty looks were certain to entice. And yes, while Steve did realize Sam was doing a pretty decent job as Bucky’s new almost-best buddy, there were still some parts in Bucky you simply couldn’t reach unless you had that shared history that the two of them had. 

There was also the small matter of Steve genuinely wanting to participate in that moment of Bucky’s formal redemption. Quite simply, he wanted to see his friend’s eyes light up at the approval and regard which would envelope him; he wanted to witness him let go of the past, propelled by the faith in the promise of tomorrow; he wanted to stand there somewhere in the corner and be proud, and to be able to pat his shoulder and tell him with conviction: You’ve come a long way, buddy. 

Speaking of medals of valor, there was a single person that had earned in Mexico a special recognition in Steve’s private gallery of honors. The condemnable actions here called no attention to themselves and would go unnoticed in the grand scheme of things – but to Steve, they meant the world. 

And the knowledge of how hard it must have been for the specific said person to take these specific actions, how it must have gone against her deepest wishes and most organic emotions, only made the deed more precious in Steve’s eyes. 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t thank Natasha enough for what she had done. In complete (and very in-character) secrecy, she had dared defy Steve’s own orders and, naturally, risked her own life, to save Steve’s modest collection of belongings and keepsakes he had cared to take with him as they fled America in the aftermath of the Civil War. 

Obviously, these consisted almost solely of his keepsakes of Peggy: the compass with a photograph of her, a handful of their wartime pictures she had managed to hand down to him just before she died, and those three long letters she had written to him although she knew he would never come back to her to read them, those quietly devastating records of what could and should have been, which Steve naturally had memorized and would quite possibly also be capable of reciting them backwards. 

Still, these were just objects, one may have thought, and Steve himself had tried to talk himself into accepting this truth as he had given up on coming back for them himself for fear of compromising the mission. 

Yes, they were just things – just stuff – and yet, at the same time, they were _his life_ , or rather, what little had been _left_ of his life. 

It was equally absurd and upsetting to Steve how he would gladly rip his insides apart just to show Natasha how much it meant to him, how she literally had saved his life with that courageous if willful act – while all at the same time he couldn’t shake the feeling that demonstrating his happiness, letting Nat know just how _really_ happy he was to have those still with him, would not be the best way to show his gratitude, or the best way to make Nat feel glad about this beautiful thing she had done. 

In fact, it would be a pretty cruel thing to do. Even he, with his straightforward, good-natured, old-fashioned naivety was quite aware of that. 

So, it looked like he had to keep his private award ceremonies and other over-the-top manifests of Romanoff appreciation to himself. 

This wasn’t the only thing that concerned Natasha which was on his mind that afternoon, as he was making his way to her new apartment in the vicinity of SHIELD’s makeshift headquarters. 

He would be hesitant to even call it the tip of an iceberg, truth be told. 

She had been through so much, and they both knew it was just the beginning. Steve’s heart broke for her every time he saw her these days, so lifeless and broken down, mostly just going through the motions to make it to the next sunrise. 

“It’s okay, though. It’s not getting any worse than it’s already been”, she would try to reassure him, putting on that wry smiling act. By now, however, Steve at least had learnt enough to afford some degree of accuracy in detecting when Natasha was lying. 

He had realized that getting through therapy would be hard on her. Nevertheless, to have a rational image of what consequences of a certain move will be and to experience its full-blown impact first-handedly were two different things entirely. 

He may have been ignorant and known very little, but even he was aware that Natasha had been through some of the most horrible experiences a human being can be subjected to. Revisiting the nightmares, both those that she had endured and those that she had inflicted on the others, would suffice to crush the strongest souls. Still, this whole therapy thing, if Sam’s account was to be believed (and why wouldn’t it?), had become pretty big in this century, helping countless people heal unspeakable wounds and put the shattered pieces of themselves back together. It sounded exactly like what Natasha needed, and as she herself would observe, cleaning a wound was always initially more painful than letting it quietly fester in the background, doing nothing as it slowly filled your blood with poison that bit by bit would go on killing who you were on the inside. 

By and large, it was Steve’s idea, and although both Natasha and Sam had tried to keep his expectations reasonably low, in his famed ‘giddy optimism’ (copyright Anthony Stark) he truly believed it would go, well, nice and smooth. Natasha would open up about the atrocities, forgive herself, forgive the world at large, think of amendments where necessary, and become free to start anew. 

Well, seeing Natasha in that state a few weeks into intensive therapy, at least now he understood why she had refused to do this at any point before. 

And exactly like with what she had done for him in Mexico, he felt at once captivated, moved and torn apart by the awareness how she was putting herself through a grinder to a large degree for his sake. 

She had been feeling out of control, and done a few things she regretted. A few things Steve wished she hadn’t done, either. It was like the precious friend he loved and respected and had come to rely on was going through an endless internal struggle with a wounded animal hell-bent on survival, craving blood-bathed revenge for every single slight and transgression; and occasionally, recently more often than not, the animal would get the better of the friend. Steve wasn’t too proud to admit that at a point he had come close to giving up on Natasha. Luckily, it was also exactly then that he had learnt, in most general yet still ghastly enough terms, about the events from her past that had shaped her into that mutated dual human-beastly form. It was also then that he had remembered who she really was, who the Natasha that he knew and cared for was. 

The duplicitous, scheming, at times murderous viper that liked to rear its head whenever Natasha felt threatened or deprived wasn’t the whole truth about her. It wasn’t even the real her. It was more like an armor, designed to protect her and get her by, but now worn out, malfunctioning and doing more harm than good. Now once and for all Steve was certain of it, and he dedicated himself to reminding Natasha who she really was – who he saw her for. 

And this time around, she was determined to shed that armor, ready to stay defenseless and vulnerable for a while if that was the price to pay.

Like she said herself, “I’d literally rather walk over my own dead body than hurt you again”.

Indeed, what she was going through that so-called therapy now, it seemed, was getting quite close to the walking over her dead body zone. 

She didn’t want to do that, but still she had decided there was no other way. Much like with Peggy’s keepsakes. 

If only it was in his power to make it up to her.

If only he wasn’t a torn down, broken man out of time himself.

If only he could appreciate her by giving her a life she deserved. 

Instead, overcome by his limitations, bludgeoned by his loss, crashed by his own anger and confusion, he kept treading this life half-alive, half in the past, unwittingly conveying to Nat a message which in his heart of hearts he now had come to believe was the opposite of truth: that he was holding back because she was unworthy.

**

When she opened the door for him, Steve could barely hold in a gasp bordering on a moan. 

“Oh my God… Natasha, you look terrible.”

It had been going on for weeks, so he should have got used to it by now. Instead, the reverse seemed to be occurring: each time he saw her like that, ghostly pale, worn down, dark bruise-like circles below her eyes extending down to her cheeks, it hit him stronger and got more difficult to take. 

The longer it lasted, the more directly he had to confront the severity of her predicament, facing the simple fact that she was in pain and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As much as he wanted to fix it just like that, as much as he wanted it to go away. He was powerless, and he hated it. 

“Why, that’s so generous of you, Steven.”

She curved her lips in her regular acerbic smile, but her eyes stayed motionless, outright dead. It was simply chilling to see her like that. 

Even her voice sounded blunt and toned down, even raspier than usual, but without that peculiar glistening vibe that normally made it so distinctive. By the very fine, seemingly inconsequential details undetectable to anyone not used to hearing Natasha speak for extended periods on a daily basis, Steve could instantly tell that something was off, like she had a sore throat. 

He sighed and shook his head to express both worry and exasperation at how unbelievable it was of her to shield off his concern with irony. 

“By the way, _this_ is pretty generous of you, too”, she added, taking the grocery bag from his hands while he was standing in the doorway trying to find the right words to say. “After all this conversation we’ve had about me being capable of handling my dietary needs myself, now this is a case of persistence and loyalty to one’s values worthy of Captain Rogers himself.” 

Her choice of words told him very clearly it was supposed to sting, in that regular modern-girl-mocking-an-old-fashioned-boy way she had usually chosen to mock him in the earliest days of their relationship and which she would occasionally still slip into when she was irritated or angry at him, or upset because of him.

This time, however, nothing in her attitude revealed that she was angry or upset – and knowing her as well as he did by now, Steve could tell that this wasn’t an act, either. There was no aggravation in her eyes, and no provocation. No will to fight, either. There was just this void staring back at Steve, dormant and exhausted, too tired to care, disbelieving if anything could make any difference.

Seeing her like that with each passing second made Steve feel like another piece of him would break down and crumble. 

If Steve hadn’t known what to say before, then now he had all the less of a clue. 

Maybe it was to be expected, though. He wasn’t the one who had the best way with words; not much had changed in this respect since the mid-twentieth century. He was much more of a doer than a talker, and he decided right now to follow that line – to let go of idle conversations which couldn’t bring him any closer to what he actually wanted to convey, and get into action.

In this case, action meant getting Natasha to eat anything. Simply buying the groceries wasn’t enough. 

He casually entered the kitchen and took over the grocery bags back from Natasha, swiftly arranging the aliments in the cupboards and on the shelves with the special skill available only to experienced motherless bachelors living alone in the nineteen forties with no special lady to take care of their household needs. 

He may not have literally known this specific kitchen in this particular apartment, but he nonetheless felt at home here and already knew his way around – it was just like those good earlier times when he had shared Natasha’s old apartment, practically spending more time there than at his own place. As their shared tradition would have it, there he had been in charge of kitchen and the nutrition department, seeing as Natasha on most days couldn’t care less what and when she would eat. Now it was just like coming back to those good old times. 

He almost felt like he could close his eyes and pretend they had been taken back right there, when everything was easier and, by comparison, so carefree, almost innocent. Back to the fleeting period gone in a flash when he had been sure who Natasha was to him and what to expect of her, when they both had faith in each other and had each others’ back no matter what. Back when he hadn’t hesitated to trust her. Back when he hadn’t yet let her down. Back before she was this screwed. 

Steve cleared his throat in a response to his own unspoken thoughts. Then, he shook his head and cut the inner dialogue off, deciding it would be more useful to proceed with another attempt at an actual dialogue instead.

He didn’t have to look at her to know what she was doing – his spatial sensitivity told him she was already out of the kitchen, tossing herself over the bedroom floor in a hundredth series of killer push-ups that day (if not that hour). She had been that way ever since they returned to the US. Exhausting herself physically was clearly her way of dealing with too much tension, anxiety and pure vitriol rushing through her body. And she clearly had a point here: running yourself down to the point you were too tired to think, to remember or to feel was a pretty efficient coping mechanism. Having smashed to the ground countless punching bags as his welcome party to the 21st century, Steve would know this better than anyone.

Anyway, without even turning his head in Natasha’s direction, he asked as unassumingly as he could: 

“What did you have for lunch today?”

After a couple of weeks of experience, he knew better than to ask simple yes-no questions, which basically invited Natasha to evade the answer or, frankly, to lie. She probably still could lie the hell out of him whenever she wanted to, but at least he planned to do his part and not make it too easy for her.

Right now, the problem was that Natasha seemed too exhausted to even care about lying. Steve still couldn’t get his head around the fact that he was bothered by her being uninterested in lying, but that was the crazy way the things had been for some time now. 

“I had… something”, he could hear her reply after a few unconvincing moments of deliberation. Her voice was vaguely muffled and uneven, revealing that she didn’t bother to stop exercising even as she responded to him.

There was not much more he could do about this kind of statement, other than raise his eyebrows and roll his eyes. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Hardly had he finished that resigned declaration when he was startled by a sudden unsettling sensation of green eye lasers burning a hole in his back. He turned around to find an unimpressed Natasha, red locks ruffled in waves above her forehead and beads of sweat circling down her cheekbones. She had somehow managed to teleport herself back to the kitchen in less than a flash, marking this as another one of those occasions when Steve realized that had she fancied to stab him in the back or do away with him in any gruesome, Soviet training-instilled manner imaginable, she would have been able to do accomplish this pretty effortlessly. 

“Steve, get off of my back.” Her tone was commanding, if composed, and for the first time that day had some resonance and vitality to it. It suddenly seemed to Steve like going out of his way to arrange the lunch at her place was worth it, if only to annoy her enough to make her actually argue about it. “I mean, seriously. Remember how force-feeding turned out for me the last time?” 

He couldn’t recall force-feeding anyone, but naturally even as a nonagenarian he wasn’t demented enough not to remember Natasha’s cramped stomach rejecting every single bite of dinner he had brought her some two weeks ago. He had seated himself in the hallway and announced he would neither move nor eat anything himself – start a sort of a hunger strike, if necessary – until Natasha had her share. He only gave up when after a yet another vomiting fit Natasha threatened that next time she would puke all over him rather than into the bowl, and the emotionless, couldn’t-care-less look on her pale sunken face, while reminiscent of the old Natasha and thus dear to behold, made it clear she really meant it. Which was why Steve had decided to give up the idea of dinner for the time being, but only to rethink the strategy, regroup the forces and strike back.

He could do this all day. Every day. For as long as it took. Anything went, as long as it helped him make sure Natasha was properly nourished. 

Anyway, none of this qualified as force-feeding, right? 

“Nobody will be forcing anything here, Nat. I thought I might as well have my lunch here today, and you’re welcome to join me anytime you like.” This was one of the results of ‘rethinking the strategy’: instead of pleading, insisting and pressuring, Steve decided to set an example. Like they said in that article in the newsfeed he had come across when scrolling down on his telephone (he still had a lot of learning to do concerning the mastery of those mysterious devices that people in 21st century equally mysteriously called telephones – even though they seemed to be anything but what Steve remembered as ‘telephones’ from 1945 – but he definitely was making progress), show instead of tell proved to be the most efficient childrearing approach, and Steve was hoping it would prove at least roughly as efficient with Natasha, too. 

“That I might consider”, she retorted wryly, reaching into her despicable stash of rice cakes and crackers which, had it been up to Steve, he would gladly annihilate by throwing into a grinder. 

Looking at her now, he noticed quite a few grayish spots spattered over her arms and neck, indelible signs of how she had been pushing herself to the limits throwing herself against the punching bag or exercise mat trying to get out of her system all of the hurt, rage and terror that had been bottled up inside her for years. 

He couldn’t see a deadly assassin rummaging there in the cupboard, or a seasoned fighter, or a master-class spy more than capable of handling herself in any situation. All he could see was a bundle of raw nerves, so frail that poking it with a finger might cause it to crack, and leaning against it might simply shatter it. 

_Did I do this to her?_ , an unsettling question echoed inside him, sending a rush of guilt all over his body. No amount of muscle and stamina could make him resistant to that ticking poison decomposing him from the inside, as he found himself unable to fight off the questions he had since a long time gestated in his mind, and the on-point accusations that no amount of compensatory caretaking and overprotectiveness could ultimately help him evade. 

_You’re the reason she’s putting herself through this. You know you’re not worth it._

_She’s going through hell for your sake, and yet all you’re going to do when this is over is say ‘no’ to her again._

Funny; he had had no idea the muscles of a human throat could cramp the way his were right now. 

Or maybe they couldn’t. Maybe that was just another anomaly of a mutated body and the freak that had consented to make himself that way. 

“Steve.” 

It sounded like Natasha’s deep, raspy voice was calling him from a different world or a different dimension altogether, in so doing strangely pulling him back to his own body, to the here and now. 

He snapped out of his whirlpool of self-loathing and self-pity to see Natasha’s eyes of malachite green scanning him inquisitively. 

“Give me a break, will you?”

Of course she would say that. She may have been crawling half-dead on the floor, but heaven forbid she should admit to a weakness, to actually needing help, needing someone… anyone. 

Steve didn’t use to compete with anyone for the title of the most independent and the most persistently convinced of his own self-sufficiency in the lot. Maybe this was why the same exact characteristic in Natasha had always aggravated him so much. Nobody liked to be held a mirror of oneself like that, not even the alleged paragon of virtues, Captain America. Especially not when what the said mirror would reflect in actuality was less than virtuous. 

“A break? From what?”, he responded, feigning ignorance in a manner so unconvincing he made Natasha snort without smiling. 

“All these years in espionage or on a run and you still manage to suck at lying so bad. How do you do that?”, she asked with that deadpan expression and those motionless, indifferent eyes, exuding an aura of complete disinterest even as she fired those cannons of stinging sarcasm right at him. 

Even though she may not have looked like an attacker, she was menacing enough to make Steve put up his defenses in an instant – launch those anti-mockery, counter-outcast, contra-insecurity shields that had so far mostly done a decent job keeping the kid from Brooklyn safe from Captain America’s enemies and detractors. 

“I don’t know, maybe it’s better if somebody does”, he responded with a shrug of his impeccably broad shoulders and a wryness of the tone that matched that of Natasha’s, or at least had been intended to. 

But instead of the expected continuation of the verbal fencing, all he saw was Natasha’s so far unconcerned face put on that weird, resigned shade that seemed to be splitting it in two, the wax-like steadiness of her mouth contrasted with the suddenly moved, almost pained look of her eyes. 

She stepped back, as if now it was Steve that had attacked her rather than vice versa, and then she gave that dull response: 

“Right, maybe it is”.

She turned away, apparently to return to her exercise/torture routine, and only then did Steve realize the impact his silly retort could have had on her, as well as the degree of his own stupidity in the moment he had decided to utter those words. 

It wasn’t that long ago that he had decided he would be done once and for all with all the shaming, all the moralizing, all the – even unspoken – feelings of superiority over her, all the self-congratulation for being the truthful and ethically proper one… right? It wasn’t that long ago that he had concluded her life, for all of its mistakes, all its wrongs and all its deception, wasn’t all the matter of her free-willed choice. She was not to be blamed, at least not entirely, for the choices she had made and the ways she had decided to stand up for herself, not after all the atrocities that had been done to her. More than just that, she was to be commended for her efforts to break the vicious cycle and start anew, the initial results notwithstanding. 

And yet here he was again, admittedly by accident, but still, sounding like he had been judging her, making her feel inferior for her two-faced ways, those exact ways she had just now been going through such pain to fight – more for his sake than anyone else’s, to make matters even worse and himself even more ungrateful.

And even away from all this elaborate context, it was simply unfair of him to bring up her deceptiveness out of the blue like that, when it had absolutely no relevance to the banter going on between the two of them. 

He had gone full swing from playing the victim to feeling like the ultimate asshole, all within the matter of less than a minute. 

“God, Nat, I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” 

There was a certain desperateness to his voice in the way he had called out to her. He was afraid that it showed how anxious he was that his mindless attempts at quipping may have alienated her for good, this time really ripping her away from him. 

Yet, she did turn around. Of course she did. For him she would always turn around, sooner or later, whether he deserved it or not.

“I know”, she said simply, with that striking softness in her usually stern and detached tone, the softness that would only appear there when what someone had said or done crumbled her defenses just a little. 

And she probably was right; she did know he hadn’t said that on purpose, she did know he hadn’t meant to put her down. This didn’t, however, stop her from getting hurt by his thoughtlessness, nor him from becoming overpowered at the stupefyingly huge douchebag that he was. 

That gnawing cloud of remorse must have painted itself in full grayscale all over his face, because it apparently made even Natasha feel sorry for him.

Still using that soft tone, she approached him by one step closer, just enough to stand an inch or two outside his arm’s reach. He could sense her looking up intently to find his downtrodden gaze – possibly for the first time that day looking so actively to meet his eyes. 

“It’s okay”, she said in that calm, reassured voice reminiscent of the way she had been on her best, most powerful days, a realization which had sent shivers down Steve’s spine, making it suddenly extremely clear to him how much he missed that Natasha. 

Assuaged enough to bring himself to look straight back at her – at that unassuming, delicate form of an attractive woman in reality so full of that formidable strength and courage – he was awestruck to find how much her eyes had changed only in the course of that brief conversation. 

A lot of their expression, and at least some of their natural liveliness and colors, had now returned. It was almost like they had warmed up to the sincerity of Steve’s apology – or was Steve just an arrogant, delusional fool to even think that? 

Then Natasha’s eyes took on his insecure gaze in that straightforward, fiery manner, at once fascinating and terrifying, like they could set the world on fire. 

She spoke again, and her words dispelled what little remained of Steve’s doubts if she was now back at his side as much as she could.

“I’m not planning to die, Steve”, she announced without a shade of hesitation, with such ravishing confidence that Steve could do nothing but believe her. 

It was honestly a little stunning how she was able to dig out in the open his deepest, most repressed, most terrifying fear about her, and exactly by doing so – to alleviate it. 

He stood there speechless, watching the flame inside her reignite and light her up, with force and spirit he was not sure if he had ever witnessed in her before. 

“I’ll work this out. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I will. You hear me? I gave you my word, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it count this time.”

Her conviction was such that now he could not bring himself to remember he had doubted she would win this battle with herself, even if he had been barely seconds away from the anguish of that very doubt. 

The sheer power of her resolution, one that had set her eyes ablaze and sealed both her eyebrows and her lips in tight, decisive knots, was straight out intimidating, and humbling in a good way. Steve felt lucky he was now able to stand so close to this force of nature in the shape of a sublime woman and warm his tired spirit with its glow. 

“Yes… I, um…” he faltered even after he regained the control over his vocal chords enough to be able to respond in any way. The air around Natasha was so hot – in a non-sexual, primal way – that it left Steve quite literally scorched. “I… I do believe you. I mean, I can see that you’re trying.”

What he had said sounded awkward even for his own standards, but he wasn’t aiming for a display of eloquence here, either. He felt the obligation to respond in any way that would make it clear he took her word seriously and found her trustworthy; he had had more than a fair share of unfair, underhanded striking at her duplicitous ways for one day. 

They both smiled at the stilted uneasiness of Steve’s comment. It was such a relief to see Natasha smile again – even if the smile was this timid and gentle – not a smirk, not a condescending snicker, just a pure, essential smile he had missed so much these days. 

Her body language now was saying that she had relaxed a little. She leant against the cupboard top, even resting her elbow for more support and thus taking a bit more open posture, as if she had finally admitted that being so alert and self-reliant all the time was pretty damn exhausting. The flames around her had subsided a little, perhaps making it possible to approach her now, filling Steve with a renewed hope for this afternoon that this visit might actually work, after all.

He had set out to come here with his superhero mindset, with the somewhat arrogant conviction that his mission was to save the poor, struggling, self-destructive Natasha (the hilarity of the mere combination of words that said “poor Natasha” notwithstanding) from drowning in the pool of past nightmares and present self-loathing. Now, however, he had finally seen the light, or rather: she had finally shown him the light. 

He hadn’t come here because _Natasha needed_ to be _saved_. He had come here because _he wanted_ to be _there for her_ ; because _he didn’t want her_ to be _alone_.

With a shiver blinking through his spine all the way up to his brain he remembered the echo of the exact same words she had once used to set him free. 

Now he was reliving that moment when she embraced him at Peggy’s funeral, going out of her way, metaphorically as well as literally, just to share with him one of the darkest, most conflicted days that had befallen him in his twenty-first century life. 

On that day he, too, hadn’t needed to be saved. He would have made it perfectly fine on his own, like he always had through all his life, like he had been used to. And yet, Natasha’s kindness and compassion, the way she had understood him and simply shared his pain without judging, invalidating or fixing anything, had reduced him to a pool of tears within an instant.

No, he hadn’t needed to be saved. But he had been glad to have her by his side in that time of trial.

And he was pretty sure Natasha felt the same way right now. It wasn’t like he had asked her, and if he had, it wasn’t like she would have given him an honest answer. But deep down inside, he knew that was the case. It had been genuinely astonishing how alike the two of them could be in such respects, worlds apart on the outside, mirror images on the inside.

It had now become clear to him that he wasn’t doing this for her. He wasn’t doing it out of that conceited misconception that without his help she wouldn’t survive. He was doing it for himself, because if there was anything he could do to help her; to carry some of the burden; to alleviate some of the pain; to make her forget and feel even a slightest inkling of joy even for a fleeting moment; then he would gladly place all of his bets on it. 

It wasn’t because she wouldn’t get by without this or without him. She was a champion at getting by, much like he was one himself. 

It was simply because he liked her happy, and he liked her glad. And, maybe more than anything, because he wanted to finally thank her for everything and anything that she had done for him when he was at his lowest. 

He snapped out of the whirlpool of thoughts when he noticed her rummage around the cupboard. He didn’t need to be much of a telepath to know what she was looking for – working herself out virtually to death, she can’t not have been thirsty. Before she took the glass and put it on the cupboard top, he was already at her side with a bottle of water.

“Thanks”, she simply said, placing the glass by the bottle to let him pour the water inside. 

She clearly was able to accept his help, after all, and do it with such grace and ease like nothing could come more natural to her. The distinction between giving her what she actually wanted or needed at the given moment versus shoving help down her throat to silence your own conscience and pacify your own anxiety apparently made all the difference. 

With one slow, agile movement she raised the glass to her full, sensual lips. For a while, she kept her eyes fixed on the water, the colorful prism induced by the sunlight pouring over the kitchen; but then, with a steady motion reminiscent of that of her hand just a while before, she lifted her gaze to Steve’s face and rested it right there. It made Steve feel softly exposed, uncomfortable for not being overtly attacked, and yet having nowhere to hide. 

She stayed that way, just staring at him and making him feel practically grilled with the radiating green of her eyes. Apparently, she was not interested in saying or doing anything at all, torturing Steve with the vague visions of all those scathing, judgmental opinions on him that may have been on the roll inside that fiery red head of hers. 

He wasn’t ever any good at handling silence, the ambiguity ringing unbearably tense in his clear-cut mind. Just now, too, he cleared his throat and was just getting ready to insert something forced and mercilessly awkward when Natasha got ahead of him – and surprisingly with a line that had almost nothing to do with him, and virtually everything to do with her. 

“If this looks bad to you, you can be sure that I’m doing the best I can”, she started in that studious tone that let him know unambiguously how there would be zero accident in the wording she would choose. “I’m not starving myself. I’m not self-flagellating. I’m taking my medicine when I know I haven’t slept long enough, I remember to take showers regularly and not only when I’ve already started to stink.” She shrugged her shoulders and even flashed something of a micro-smirk, or maybe it was just Steve’s wishful thinking? Anyhow, even this little had been enough to make him beam like a madman. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly enough to insert any smart thoughts into the porous wasteland of his mind, because he couldn’t think of anything suitably bright to say, so that he had to settle for the rather vapid:

“Right, well, that’s a start, isn’t it”.

“You think so?” Natasha’s deadpan delivery may have made it seem like she was asking in complete earnestness, but Steve knew her too well by now not to be absolutely certain he was just being scoffed at for his uninspired lines. Without allowing much breathing space between Natasha’s line and his own, partly from an overzealous defensiveness, but mostly because he genuinely feeled that way, he quickly constated, as if resuming a line paused in the middle:

“… but that’s not quite enough and I really think you could use some hand with all this, you know, everyday stuff”.

Natasha let out a condescending snort, which, while not out of character at all, did nothing to make Steve feel better about himself or the situation. 

“I would ask you if you’re for real, but I can see no point wasting my breath.” 

Whatever it was about what Steve had said that got her so contentious now?

Again, the mood between them had shifted from amicable to derisive suddenly enough to give Steve a whiplash. Natasha’s demonstrative insensitivity, contempt even, of him doing his best to show her that he cared made him coil on the inside and dragged him even more onto the defensive side. 

Bloodstream pumping strong and hard inside his veins, he jetted in a strong, irritable tone that was by some distance louder than he had intended it to be:

“Good, because I don’t think you have any idea how you’ve been doing these days.”

The look he gave her then was unwittingly impatient, hardened even, as if he wished to make her realize she wasn’t the only one here fed up with their brand of walking in circles. 

Of course, he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that by challenging Natasha he would subjugate her into a reassessment of her pretenses and a genuine, meek appreciation of Steve’s kindness. He did not expect her to give up her case just because he dared to make a hint that the way she treated him made him feel a little bit angry and a little bit hurt.

Or did he? Because deep inside he couldn’t contain his aggravated surprise at how far from showing any appreciation, Natasha chose to dial up the tension between them. The biting yet essentially good-natured sarcasm that had so far rung in Natasha’s tone now turned into a corrosive kind of venomous irony.

“Sure I don’t, it’s not like it’s about me or my own life or any of my business, so what do I know, right?” 

He could feel his neck arteries swell almost to the point of an explosion. And indeed, his throat got pretty much close to exploding with the offense he had taken at Natasha’s display of belligerence. So much, in fact, that it had thrust him onto the edge of taking it all out on her, shouting out all of his pains and complaints from the past few weeks, how tired he was with her callous indifference, her acting like he didn’t matter, like he didn’t even exist. 

But instead, as if stopped by an invisible hand pulling him back, he physically stepped back, exhaled, and with his gaze directed backwards, away from Natasha’s uncompromising stare, he sighed with a dissatisfied murmur. 

“That’s not what I mean.”

Natasha responded with theatrically raised eyebrows signifying an exaggerated surprise. 

“Well, that’s a surprise, because the way you’re tripping over yourself to be running my business makes it seem like that’s precisely what you mean.”

One part of Steve separated from his heated core and had him internally shake his head at the direction their conversation had taken. How come was that happening? He had only come here in the best of intentions, wishing to look after her and to let her know that he cared. From that, how did they get to the point where they snapped at each other, throwing suspicious glances and seeking ulterior motives in every word uttered by the other party?

It was that level-headed, composed part of Steve’s being which had now dissociated from his upset self that stepped to the side. There, from over Steve’s shoulder, it took a good look at the miserable turn of events and sealed Steve’s mouth, telling him to stop just as he was about to spit out another defensive, snarly remark. And in place of that, it made Steve pause, ponder, and reach a pretty heroic decision, even for a so-called superhero’s standards, to open himself up and shoulder the risk of exposing himself along with the truth. 

“What actually I wanted to say is… I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to watch you do this to yourself from the sidelines and not be able to do anything, like, anything to help you.”

It felt raw to wear his heart right there on his T-shirt sleeve like that; it felt like forcing on your feet shoes two sizes too tight and pretending through clenched teeth that they made a perfect fit. With Natasha intent on giving him that cold, depreciative attitude, letting him know at every turn how much of a bother she had found him to be and how there was nothing he could do to bring any difference to her circumstances whatsoever, how was he supposed to believe opening himself up would bring him anything but ridicule and hurt?

And yet, he decided to believe anyway.

And this time, what his own heart on the T-shirt sleeve had whispered him was the truth. Because upon hearing the earnest melody of Steve’s words, Natasha held in starting blocks that next malice she had no doubt had ready for launch; and instead, she made that face, that singular, one of a kind face with her eyebrows arched in smooth red curves and lower lip indistinctly lowered, that face which she would make on those special occasions when for whatever reasons she decided not to hide her confusion and/or how she was second-guessing herself.

She took her time before she replied to his confession, intermittently looking at him attentively, scanning his face like she wanted to detect something beneath the surface, and looking away with a pensive expression. For once it seemed like she was actually weighing her words, attempting to be considerate toward Steve and his feelings instead of just frantically striking out with whatever she could throw just to have her way. 

Eventually, she only reiterated what she had told him a while before, only this time her tone was softer, and at the same time, paradoxically more reassuring. 

“I know how to take care of myself and I will be doing just that. It’ll be fine. You need to trust me it will.”

She spelt each word decisively, with a calm deliberateness, with just enough firmness to let him know she meant it uncompromisingly, and yet also just enough compassion to testify that she was, after all, capable of putting herself in his shoes, the position of someone forced to watch helplessly a friend relieve a nightmare and being relentlessly told there was absolutely nothing he could do to be of use. 

Staring right back into the quiet determination of Natasha’s malachite green eyes, a surge of tender emotions overwhelmed Steve out of the blue. There she was, that amazing woman, for his sake and the sake of their friendship rising above the agony and exhaustion she was going through, showing an almost inhumanly composed, level-headed face to tell him that yes, she was down, and no, things hadn’t been so good, but all that was temporary; she had it under control, and she would get back stronger than ever. 

It was actually only the last part that he found difficult to believe right now. He couldn’t quite fathom how anyone could get any stronger than that. Or how anyone could prove their strength any better than she had just now.

But then, all at the same time, she still looked so frail. And so tired. All the strain of the past months had shown itself on her face, digging trenches on the marble-pale surface beneath her eyes and sucking away the luscious glisten from her features. 

She was a strong one and she knew what she was doing, so there was no question she was correct: she really could do this alone. Still, there also was no question that having a shoulder to lean on and share the burden would make it that much easier for her.

There was no trace of condescension in the way Steve was thinking about this. He simply knew all this out of experience. He knew how much it meant to him that she had been there for him in his dark moments before, and how bearable, enjoyable even life had suddenly become the instant he shed the false pride, together with the conviction that there somehow was something noble in solitary martyrdom, and instead allowed himself to be taken care of.

“I trust you”, he reassured her as much as he reassured himself, and the relief he could see in Natasha’s eyes was in a perfect alignment with one that he felt deep down his chest. It was the very essence of relief indeed, to be able to confess to someone you trusted them mere minutes after you had been all set to jump at one another’s throat. “But well, you know, the thing is… What can _I_ do to take care of you?” 

As he pronounced that line, he looked away, overcome by a sudden shyness, an instant realization of his own limitations. What good he had to offer to someone as powerful and self-sufficient as Natasha? What was it that he could provide her with that she wasn’t capable of herself? Who was he, anyway? 

An ever-so-slight shudder of self-consciousness ran all the way through his body. For the first time in a long while he felt like he had been forced back into the skin of the scrawny kid from Brooklyn just playing dress-up in Captain America’s baggy clothes. 

Overcoming the emotion that was holding his voice back, Steve resumed to drive his point home anyway. 

“Or to help you take care of yourself? Just tell me, Natasha, how can I be there for you? Because I want to.” He didn’t have the guts to spell it all out, but he hoped that he could somehow transfer it to her telepathically: it wasn’t because he considered her incapacitated, self-destructive and out of control. It was because he wanted to be there for her like she had been for him; to instill the feeling of hope that even without all that she had lost, there was the good still coming into her life, all the upsides still making it worth it to carry on, as long as she had someone to show up at any time, any occasion, consistently, to make sure she knew somebody cared for her deeply. Just like she had for him all those times before.

She had been the master of that art. Steve had a lot to live up to, but at the same time, a great teacher to draw inspiration from. 

He also had that huge, gnawing pit of remorse telling him that more often than not, he had acted worse than thankless for all that.

All the while, Natasha was looking at him with that thoughtful, measured stare. The frost in her eyes had all but melted, and through its softened edges Steve could sense clearly how his words had reached straight into her. It even seemed like her lower lip fluttered in a micro-tremble in a reflexive reaction to being told _I want to be there for you_ , the words which, Steve had realized with a painful certainty, she had absolutely been not used to hearing. 

“I appreciate how you’re being there for me”, she eventually said in a hushed tone. For a second then she averted her gaze, as if intimidated by making a confession this warm and honest; still, she collected herself and lifted her eyes back to him, making the – inhuman in her case – effort to let go and let him see all the raw feelings underneath the composed surface. “I doubt if you have any idea how exposed it makes me feel right now to admit it upfront, but I will anyway. That’s how much this matters to me”, she confirmed Steve’s guess about what was going on inside her mind.

Steve nodded in her direction and smiled a gentle, appreciative smile. It was so refreshing and such a relief to know – as in, to have a verbal confirmation – that he wasn’t the only one who cared here, nor that he was the only one to care enough to speak about it out loud. Especially since Natasha by default had more difficulties in speaking the truth, particularly the personal, emotional, raw kind of truth. And yet, there she was, bravely reassuring him that he was wanted and welcomed here.

For once, everything fell back into place. 

Following that pause, Natasha followed with a line that yet again caught him off guard.

“Maybe a little too much”, was what she said. She folded her arms and wrapped them tightly around herself as if in a defensive posture, although on some level Steve did realize that if anything, it was protective rather than defensive. That was to say, she seemed to be trying to give herself security while unfolding what she was not comfortable sharing, a festering wound, rather than shielding herself from an imaginary attack. She still remained trusting of Steve, or at least that was what Steve wished to believe.

She paused as if to let the words sink in, and when Steve had felt himself growing tense enough, she elaborated decisively, if slightly apologetically.

“That’s why I need to go this alone. I can’t have you too close. I can’t be relying on you so much, Steve. Your kindness makes me weak.”

Within an instant, all his insecurities came back flying in an avalanche. What had been spoken was a veritable whiplash, but what had not been stated out lout, the silent stories lurking in the corners, those had been the real monsters.

What Natasha was saying, and the way she put it, made him feel like a terrible person.

Or maybe it was simply because he actually was a terrible person. 

Underneath that self-righteous, morally impeccable façade of selflessness there dwelled an ugly leech who happily used others whenever it made him feel good about himself or else was convenient, only to withdraw when there was time to repay with something real, to make a genuine commitment. 

Like that time when he’d run away because Natasha attempted to bring the two of them that one inconceivable step closer. He hadn’t had the courage to carry his load of responsibility, so instead he had eagerly passed the buck to her for crossing the unspoken line. 

For all that happened in the aftermath, all the mayhem that ensued, he had been all the more content to keep pointing the finger at her, playing a helpless victim of her vicious ways, an innocent target of unfounded hatred. His subconscious had taken extra measures to make sure he would never, ever as much as suspect he had played his own part in all this, putting on that guileless façade, refusing to see how he had left his best friend, his safe haven through thick and thin, unheard, unseen and broken-hearted. How he had essentially started it all, or at least made a meaty contribution, by letting Natasha down. 

And now, after all had been said and done, he was left to be devoured by his remorse seeing Natasha this way, because he knew he was the main reason she had been putting herself through this wringer. She yearned to be a better friend, she wanted to make sure she would never hurt him again, so she was now challenging her nightmares all by herself – even though it was Steve himself who had brought that hurt upon himself, triggering those demons inside her and then doing nothing to stop them. And still, now he was thoughtless enough, selfish enough to come here for an absolution, putting on that ‘good friend’ act, trying to make himself feel better about himself while disregarding that merely by being there, he was only making Natasha suffer more – either by giving her false hopes, or by reminding her of what seemed to be within her reach and yet could never be.

He had lost the guts to even look Natasha in the eye, so instead, he only pursed his lips in a pained wince and hanged his head in shame beyond the access of words.

This was when she unexpectedly phased through that invisible wall that had been separating them all the while. 

She approached him and gently touched his shoulder, looking up at him with a rare earnestness he could sense even if he remained unable muster the courage to look back. 

“It’s my life, Steve. My own life, my own fight, and my own stakes. I’m doing this for myself.” Her lean fingers, nested right over his left collarbone just above his frantically pounding heart, felt featherlight, but still taut, giving him unspeakable consolation; before his head was able to understand it, his body knew that everything was fine indeed. “So, don’t go feeling sorry for me, and don’t feel bad. None of this is your fault, and you owe me nothing.” 

It was like she had mind-read him. Or maybe she had. Maybe that was her superpower, her secret weapon that made her so deadly and so heroic all at once, something she skillfully kept to herself while employing to keep changing the world around her to mirror her private visions. 

Or, maybe, she didn’t even have to read his mind. Maybe she just knew him well enough to realize what he was thinking and how he was feeling at any given moment. A superpower that much more extraordinary and that much more intimidating, if Steve’s personal opinion was anything to go by. 

“If anything, I should be grateful to you for inspiring me to finally do this”, she affirmed with a smile, sliding her palm down his arm before removing her hand. But she stayed right there, barely a few inches away, giving an illusion that even if she were about to evaporate, just vanish into thin air at any moment, he would still stand a chance to catch her and keep her there. “And I probably will… I’m pretty sure I will be, once all this is over and I’m on the other side. But for now, I’m still doing my damnedest just to keep my head above the water. And it does take quite some strain to fathom that at some point I will be able to swim as much as an inch or two forward”. She sighed, rolled her eyes, possibly reflecting inside her head on how frustrated she was getting with staying paralyzed like that. Steve could only imagine how hard it must have been for her, someone so used to the action, to taking things in her own hand and personally correct the course of fate whenever possible. 

He could imagine that pretty well and pretty accurately, actually, because he was exactly the same. 

“Sometimes… sometimes it’s okay to simply do the best you can. You don’t need to push yourself any harder than that”, he reassured her with a gentle beam, tapping deep into his own experience to make himself sound as confident as possible. 

She nodded her head and knowingly smiled back at him, thus telling him that she knew exactly he had been precisely the one to talk here. 

“What I’m saying is… I need time, I guess?”, she responded, stepping back with her hands in her sweatpants pockets in a relaxed manner that seemed to be letting Steve know how now she was finally at ease. “Don’t expect too much of me while I’m no fun to be around. Go easy on me. Let me do things at my own pace.” She specified her postulates methodically, with a precision and awareness that was to be expected from someone as tough-minded as herself. And Steve really appreciated her for that. The clarity of her instructions imbued him with a faith that she knew exactly what she was talking about, so that he really could give up his overprotectiveness and let her lead the way. 

“Of course!”, he exclaimed with an uncharacteristic vigor, too happy to be able to agree with her so wholeheartedly. Then, he suddenly realized why he was so ready to vouch for her point. It was because it sounded so familiar. He believed her that this was exactly what she needed right now because he simply knew how those things worked. “You’ve always let me do that, too.”

Moved by another sentimental wave taking him over on the inside, he reached out to hold her, only to stop with his hand in the air halfway to her shoulder. 

He suddenly remembered how jittery she had been lately, her usual hypervigilance turning into full-time tremor, which was more than perfectly understandable. She had all the reason to be repulsed by a man’s touch in any capacity, now that frame after frame she was relieving the nightmares from years before. 

It had been outrageously insensitive of Steve to even think of touching her without her consent, unannounced. Like she had been some kind of object there for him to make him feel good. 

The shame opened up its despicable floodgates yet again, forcing Steve to wrestle with his own vocal chords.

With that hand still hanging just above Natasha’s shoulder, barely did he manage to whimper an almost inaudible “May I…?” when he was interrupted with a decisive squeeze of the soft, warm fingers wrapping themselves deftly around the palm of his hand. 

“Yes, you may”. The tone of Natasha’s voice was more than amused; in fact, as soon as Steve scrapped up enough courage to look at her face, he confirmed in disbelief that Natasha was actually laughing.

She was gripping his hand tightly, with strength and decisiveness one could hardly imagine to be able to spring from such a delicate form, much less in the wilted state Natasha had been displaying in the past weeks. Keeping this firm hold, to the extent that Steve could feel the blazing, steady pulse of her wrist mingle with his own, she pulled his hand to place it upon her shoulder and tenderly graze her cheek against his fingers.

And she was laughing. 

“Of course you may, you big dork. It’s sweet that you’re asking, but you’re still a dork.” 

He had almost forgotten what her laughter sounded like. The workings of human memory, unable to retain this sort of unique, vibrant sound, were beyond comprehension. 

Once upon a previous life, on a moment like this he would probably have been insulted by this laughter. He would have found it a personal attack on his old-fashioned morals and outdated manners which made it unfathomable for him to lay a finger on a lady – a lady defined in a sense broad enough to include Natasha in the scope – without as much as asking for her permission first. 

Dear God, what a twerp he had been. 

Even if she didn’t say the words, the kindness and warmth of her gesture said it all. On many occasions, he may have had all the reason not to trust her, but there had been none – regardless of what his twerpy self may have thought at the time – that could make him doubt the sincerity of her feelings for him. But this time, with this gesture, with the way she looked right now… it was something else, something more, something deeper still.

Taking a better, prolonged looked at her, Steve soon realized it was about her smile. She was standing there, holding his hand in hers and smiling like he had never seen her smile at him before. That smile was so wholesome, so unrestrained, so genuine, with no trace of deliberation; it extended up to her eyes, lighting them up and suddenly giving them a lush, glimmering shade resembling that of a tree crown in early May. That color of her eyes was so captivating that the inner artist inside Steve, ever alert, felt a strong yearning to find a perfect hue to represent it and put it into canvas. 

Only now that he had seen her like that, only now that he had something to compare, did he realize how calculated and in control she would normally be. Even when smiling or laughing, even when expressing affection or any kind of a supposedly spontaneous emotion, she was clearly holding back. There was some kind of an act to it, some kind of a cautious superficiality; an inner staging that prevented her from revealing herself to another, from letting herself be known. That was exactly who she was: a clever if unfair observer in the shadows, always noticing even the tiniest details of others’ expressions and behaviors and storing them in her memory perhaps to use them to her own advantage later, all the while herself remaining comfortably unreachable, obscure and unnoticed.

But just now she had broken all that. She had shown herself to Steve with no pretense, just as she was. She had abandoned the safety of her cover, because she trusted him enough to do that.

Steve knew he couldn’t possibly imagine how much it cost her to reach this breakthrough. Then, he also wondered if Natasha could possibly imagine how much it meant to him and how it moved him to know she had placed her precious trust in him like that. 

This time he couldn’t hold back any more; instantly forgetting all the lofty ideas of consideration and consent, he simply wrapped his bulky arms around Natasha’s delicate frame. Apparently, being incorrigible simply was a part of who he was. 

He was content to imagine that by covering her like that with his own flesh, he shielded her from all the hurt and harm, be it past, present and future. Within a flash, he experienced with utter clarity a yearning to bring shelter to this caterpillar, often unsightly and sometimes downright toxic; unbelievable as it may have seemed, it was just a matter of time – a few peaceful days, just a couple of peaceful moments away from the cold, the heat and the drought – before the caterpillar would eventually spread its wings and hatch into a gorgeous butterfly it had always been meant to be. 

He could swear he could see those wings just now, shooting from Natasha’s back in a pool of light. The vision was so vivid and clear that once more he felt an almost physical urge to paint it in all the colors right away. Now that she had graced him with a taste of what things could be – what she could become at the end of that really dark, really long tunnel.

He had gone an express shortcut road from guilt to hope, from despair to excitement. A while ago it had been a struggle to get through another moment next to her; and now he couldn’t wait to see this vision come alive, to live this vision right there by her side.

And Natasha apparently reciprocated those sentiments, if her trustful clinging to Steve’s embrace was anything to go by. The red braided ponytail gently nuzzled the side of his neck as she hid her face in the dent where his arm met his shoulder; wrapping her arms around his neck, she rested her palms on the backside of his shoulders and mildly pressed them as she held on to him with no trace of hesitation, no sign of restraint. 

Steve couldn’t remember when was the last time when they had been so close – if ever. It also slipped his attention when he had unconsciously started to long for this moment never to end; to stay this way together, confident and reassured in each others’ arms, without ever having to return to their respective realities with all the complications, all the convolution and confusion, where nothing was ever easy, definitely not as easy as that embrace. 

Incidentally, it was also the first time he had, even if only subconsciously, considered that holding Natasha close, staying wrapped in her body warmth and breathing in the air she breathed out was the easiest thing in the world. 

It was Natasha who broke away from the bliss of their perfect silence, leaning back a little, enough to be able to immerse her gaze into Steve’s eyes. 

She wasn’t smiling anymore, but the light and the warmth of that smile remained in the renewed, succulent lushness of her malachite green irises. 

“I’ll come back. I promise”, she assured him, giving him an encouraging squeeze on the forearm like he had been the one who needed consolation here. 

Maybe he was, after all. After all had been said and done, she seemed pretty sure she would come out of this hell just fine. Amusingly, he wouldn’t be so certain to say the same about himself. 

And now that he heard those words of comfort he had secretly longed for all these weeks and even within the previous dozens of minutes – a declaration that Natasha as he knew her was coming back and things between them would return to how they used to be, without their friendship ending up as the latest addition to the long list of dear things he had lost forever – something about it struck him as off, as not doing justice to the reality of how things were.

Had she really, actually been gone? Had she? Or had it just been him being deaf and blind?

In his heart of hearts, he already knew the answer, and it came naturally out of his mouth. 

“… But you’ve been here all along, Nat.”

Yes, she had. And in that struggle to regain her integrity and dignity, in that fight to pick up all the pieces that had been shattered by the world’s inhuman cruelty towards her and further ground down by her own bitter vengefulness, she was emerging perhaps as more herself than she had ever been. 

Right now, she seemed to be living her darkest moments, touching the rawest forms of agony and despair; and yet, never before had he heard her speak about herself with this much faith, with this kind of quiet, resilient confidence. 

He had known she was perfectly able of bestowing such faith and confidence onto others, such as himself. But now she had changed, she had grown to the point she was able to be the source of this unmistakable strength to her own self, and to use it for her own sake to simply become a better person, old-fashioned and Captain America-nish as it may have sounded. 

“I’m so proud of you”, he could hear his own voice reflexively bounce out of his vocal chords before he could process his own intentions.

Maybe it was just his wishful thinking, but he could swear he saw a tear or two shimmer in that malachite green of her eyes which she tried to conceal with a shy, unassuming smile, coupled with a short, but earnestly vibrant:

“Thanks”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an unexpected move, Natasha takes Steve shopping to get him properly dressed for the Stark gala. While she seems to be genuinely enjoying the experience, Steve is left in a bundle of complicated feelings he has no idea how to untangle.

The way the afternoon unfolded ended up pretty far away from any visions, vague as they may have been, that Steve had had upon leaving his own apartment. After all, he expected Natasha to be vegetative in a full-on survival mode. He couldn’t remember her showing any interest in any outside affairs since that time in Mexico. 

Now he honestly didn’t know what to say when she shot him with a sudden, decisive: 

“We need to get you a new suit”.

As it turned out, by ‘we’ she meant that she would actually physically go outside with him to do the shopping, with all those exaggerated 21st-century ceremonies of pilgrimaging around the shops, conversing with the shop attendants about all the needs, shoulds and mustnots, organizing the fitting and then, to cap off these painstaking processes, scrupulously analyzing the thus obtained data to make the optimal choice. 

Naturally, it was all intended for the sake of that woeful Stark gala. And Natasha’s very question if he had thought about what he would wear that evening caught Steve by surprise. 

Of course he hadn’t – not least because throughout most of his 21st century experiences with formal wear she had been there to make sense of his wardrobe, releasing him from any responsibilities in that respect. But another reason had been that this time he really had different concerns taking up his precious thinking space, such as reestablishing his and his team’s, including Bucky, everyday life back in the States. As well as making sure every now and then that Natasha would make it to another day of the therapy.

So yes, planning his outfit for another one of Tony’s stupid vanity projects hadn’t exactly charted high on Steve’s list of priorities. On some subconscious level he had apparently assumed that things would take care of themselves on their own. True, with most of his personal belongings lost, missing or still displaced after he had left them upon fleeing to Wakanda, his closet was now mostly a well-aired chunk of space with an occasional lumberjack shirt, some lonely pair of jeans and some worn down sports clothes. For him, this was doing the job perfectly and he didn’t feel in the least bit motivated to change that state. In all frankness, he couldn’t see himself hopping around department stores looking for pieces of a set for a dress-up game – it wasn’t ever a task he would find enjoyable, much less under the present circumstances.

“I don’t know”, was his optimally concise way of telling her all this.

And he was quite taken aback to be greeted with a look that sent a mixed message of ‘are you kidding me?’ and ‘I’m not surprised at all’, with Natasha’s lips wiggling in a smug smile hiding which she had perhaps briefly considered, but ultimately remained unconvinced about giving it all of her care and effort. 

That was to say, he wasn’t surprised by the look itself – it had been a mainstay in Natasha’s facial expressions repertoire ever since they first met that day on the SHIELD helicarrier – just by the fact that she summoned it for such a trite moment.

“What alternatives are you saying that you have?”, she inquired, her eyebrows rising in a reverse proportion to the depth of her pockets her hands would land into.

He had an uneasy feeling about the direction this conversation would take.

“I don’t know, I figured Tony would work something out, or I could go in my uniform”, he mumbled, feeling like he was back at school in deep 1930s trying hard to find his way out of a difficult question a stern teacher would unfailingly call him out with right in the middle of his daydreaming. 

Natasha pointed her index finger upwards in that impeccably toned down gesture of a theatrical _now-there’s-a-point_ acknowledgement. 

“That you could do. And give Stark his satisfaction that he has to be looking out for you.” 

_Give Stark his satisfaction_ … Like… was she being mean on purpose, or what? 

One glance at her roguish half-smile and the sly glimmer in her eyes let him know all the answers that he needed. How on earth could he have forgotten even for a second: Mean-On-Purpose had been the streak of her middle names.

“I don’t care about his satisfaction, or the lack of it for that matter”, he sighed with exasperation, a sound interrupted by a sudden snort that let him know in no uncertain terms he had clearly said something stupid.

Natasha followed the laugh with an exaggeratedly serious:

“Give me a minute, I need to write this down” – and then she actually took a schedule book and a pencil to scribble something under that day’s date.

Steve wasn’t quite sure whatever on Earth she meant this time, but this kind of blissful ignorance didn’t prevent him from blushing like a madman. Which he admittedly would become every now and then in her presence. 

“Or, maybe you’re really doing this on purpose?”, she expressed fake doubts, pensively biting on the edge of the pencil. “You go in your uniform, you show the world the material deprivation of the number one hero of the state, you give Stark some pure bad press.” Before he had the time to make any sense of her reasoning and the sudden swerves of her argument, she concluded: “That’s pretty underhanded if you ask me. You might want to reconsider that career in espionage”. 

Steve rolled his eyes, and his head was getting heavy with the teasing overdose. 

“So you’re saying that chances are I’m…”

“…chances are you’re in the wrong business”, her voice overlapped with his, although they had had no prior arrangement about the thing to say at that point – they had simply come up independently with the callback to their Hydra/Winter Soldier quest from a lifetime before, in the process getting her to finish his sentence. 

They both laughed softly at the stunning synchronicity of their respective lines. The harmony that filled up the space between them at that moment felt so overwhelming, so intimate and so right that it paradoxically made them avert their eyes in uneasiness. 

Thankfully, Natasha’s quick mind was there to save them from the awkwardness, thwarting the silence before it could detectibly make an impact on the mood between them. 

“Can’t you just give me an excuse to get out of the house and actually do something?”

So, that’s what it was about. It wasn’t entirely clear to Steve why it should have been specifically getting him a new suit, out of all things, that could motivate her to leave the apartment, but neither did he feel compelled to challenge it in any way. 

In fact, in his heart of hearts he could feel a sparkle of hope – he could sense it before he could think it – that maybe this sudden shift in Natasha’s attitude meant that maybe she was considering, after all, coming to that silly gala. 

It took him aback the moment he realized his own vague sense of excitement at the thought she might be there with him, after all – that they may, after all, go there together, as a duo, as a team, having each other’s backs like they had for years.

It wasn’t just about having a supportive presence there for him during a stressful time, nor just about the relief that someone who was just going through a rough time apparently was getting well enough to go out and socialize in any capacity and scale. This kind of a momentary return to the old days for the two of them was almost symbolic, like a patch on a broken jar that seemed to say: _We’re not done yet, the past can be amended, we can start anew_. 

Instantly, Steve remembered his first years in SHIELD – his first years in the 21st century, for that matter – which frequently paired him with Natasha during their intelligence assignments. For many of those missions they had to go undercover. As a matter of fact, that was how many of their inside jokes and other shared exclusive zones had come to be. They had been through a lot together, sometimes high-octane and adventurous, sometimes trivial and mundane, and with no one else around to participate in the endeavor, they had naturally come to rely on each other as an indispensable part of their everyday experience. 

It was only human, after all, to share a part of your world with another, to feel the need for it to be reflected in another’s. And both Steve and Natasha were only human, refute and deny this obvious fact as they might.

There had been an occasional head-on collision, of course, a crack or an altercation every now and then. It could not have been any other way. They were too different, in the polar, at-odds way of differing. Steve was like an open book full of principles adherence to which he believed in with his all, sometimes, in Natasha’s own words, confusing uprightness with uptightness. It could not have not clashed with Natasha’s underhanded sneakiness, piling on a lie upon a lie, as her default mode of operation.

It had taken them a long time, filled with negotiations, compromises, and testing one another’s limits with a lot of hurt and not exactly fair tactics on both sides, before they learned to appreciate one another for who they were and stopped trying to change one another into who they were clearly not. 

The truth was, however, that far from being the complete picture, these contrasts between them really said very little about them as a team. Once worked out, their differences did more good than bad for their job, complementing each other in an almost perfect yin-yang manner; and perhaps more importantly, unbeknownst at first glance, they really had more in common than things which set them apart.

They were both steadfast, dedicated, and relentless. Whatever they had set their minds to accomplishing, accomplish they would. They were also both deeply loyal and responsible at their core, although both expressed it in completely different ways, and it had indeed been a long-lasting challenge Steve before he was able to figure out just how much caring and devotion was there buried underneath Natasha’s mannerisms of cynical detachment. Anyhow, soon after they had started working together, they realized that oftentimes, when a cause seemed lost and all effort to be invested into it wasted or plain crazy, the two of them would be the only ones left on the battlefield, not just believing they still stood a chance, but also with a vision ready and a concrete plan prepared as to how to get there.

It was usually those plans – the specific steps and their execution – that had them butt their heads. But Steve had been rather quick, for his own rigid standards that is, to understand that he wholeheartedly preferred to have someone he could argue with about the enactment of the plan than to have absolutely no one sharing the view that any plan made any sense at all. 

He would even have admitted that in this regard, maybe, possibly… perhaps… in very general terms… in this very particular respect… Natasha reminded him of Peggy. He would have, had that not been a blasphemy outrageous enough that the mere consideration of it made his brain melt. 

Then there also had been the laughs and the joy, the highlight of those earlier times. Few people had ever realized that Steve Rogers actually did have a decent sense of humor – at most times it was simply buried under the stern armor of earnestness and self-seriousness with a tint of a boyscoutish guilelessness. After a lifetime of being the weak link of any group he’d found himself in, and used to experiencing limitless ridicule for no other reasons than the unconditional faith in his values and a failure to meet the widespread criteria of acceptable masculinity, Steve had learnt better than to let down his guard and relax just about enough to let someone else see his more playful, whimsical side. 

But with Natasha, he somehow did just that.

In fact, Natasha calling him ‘Steven’, by his full name, also had its roots in one of those early assignments. They had been undercover moving around Europe, and someone at the SHIELD headquarters decided it would be safest and most convincing if they played siblings. At that point, truth be told, there had been absolutely no role for Steve to play to make it safe and convincing – his innate honesty clashed with the requirements of working for an espionage organization to a degree it immediately had become a running joke in their department. Natasha, however, decided to play along and jump into the premise front and center, engaging with an eerie conviction in performing the archetype of a teasing, no-nonsense, infinitely patient big sister to her slow-witted and perpetually confused baby brother. Every now and then Steve would catch himself unsure whether this had really been but an act or if they really had been a family from another space and time, now miraculously reunited. Needless to say, this had been a pretty uncanny impression to get. 

Anyway, ‘Steven’ had been one of the specific ways in which she would get them both in character. She introduced him like that to all the unaware third parties – ‘Hi, I’m Natalie, and this is my brother Steven’ – and addressed him like that in public, apparently convinced that ‘Steven’ was an appropriate label for a shy, self-serious, somehow dumb bag of meat. 

Sure enough, Steve had never been much of an actor, all the less so at that time, during his early SHIELD days. It had been only logical, then, that his ‘acting’ range, if that was even the word in his case, couldn’t cover anything beside him essentially playing himself. This may have been a reason why Natasha had smoothly transitioned from calling him ‘Steven’ as a front to using his full name as a joking reference to their mission also in private.

Or maybe she had been doing this just because she could, and just because it seemed to worked well as a means of teasing him. 

A lot had changed since then, obviously, but somehow, for some reason, ‘Steven’ had stuck with them for good. 

Now Steve remembered that this period in Europe might have been the first time she had helped him buy a suit. A necessity for one unexpectedly arose and they had no time to wait for their local SHIELD contacts to take care of the wardrobe supply. It was an equally comical and exasperating situation, himself never really caring about his appearance or giving much thought to fashion – which also may have had a little to do with the fact that inside his head, he had still been the scrawny kid from Brooklyn whose looks had been best left with no attention at all – and now suddenly faced with the prospect of hunting for evening wear, 21st-century style. He was, however, lucky enough to have Natasha there with him, and Natasha took charge of the situation like a professional. 

The execution of the plan was quick and painless, and it almost seemed like his very presence had been dispensable: she would probably have managed to do it all without him. She somehow knew his size and measurements with a level of exactness that surpassed his own (how was he supposed to know what the size of his collar was anyway? Tailors back in the day used to take their own measures rather than rely on the word of the client – what else would they even have been there for?), making Steve wonder until the present day if it really had been just the brilliant sharpness of her eye or if she had simply taken that data from some classified files that SHIELD had kept on him. Not that the very thought of SHIELD keeping such personal data on him didn’t make him sick, but that was a different story altogether.

They had come a long way since then, but some things hadn’t really changed. Like Natasha meaning business and remaining very methodical about the search for Steve’s new suit and all the accessories to go with it. She knew him too well to count on him getting in any way decisive or creative about his own preferences, so she just outlaid her vision for him instead, and expected him not to interfere with the process. From the experience they’d had so far, they shared the tacit conviction that the optimal way to go was for her to oversee all of the project and manage the steps along the way, while he would just tag along and did the absolute minimum to allow for the progress of the objectives… which usually came down to him obediently getting into the changing room with the suits and shirts hand-picked by Natasha, trying them on and showing himself to let her assess if the shape was the right fit. He did at times back the presentation up with some sensory report on his own behalf, employing such eloquent and precise expressions such as ‘that shoulder part is a bit tight’ or ‘the sleeves feel a little baggy’, but mostly they both agreed that the ultimate choice was Natasha’s call, as she was the only one here who had any idea what she was dealing with and going for. 

It would have been the same this time around, too, had the circumstances not been so special. This time, however, unexpectedly even for himself, Steve found himself strangely energized and active in the mall. He voiced his opinions on the pieces he was looking at and considering trying on, but perhaps the most surprising part was that he even had those opinions at all. Surprising for himself, at least, because Natasha, ever flexible and ready to adjust to whatever situation may come her way, after the initial few moments of consternation just went along with the new and proceeded to argue about the advantages of a dark blue suit over a regular black one like they had been doing nothing but discussing this ever since they met.

“Blue is stylish, it’s edgy, and it makes you stand out”, she explained casually while going through a rack of overpriced jackets, looking at which Steve couldn’t help wondering for how long a single mother household, such as one he had grown up in, would be fed and clad if provided with a single item’s worth of money. 

“And yes, before you tell me that standing out is precisely what you’re trying to avoid, let me remind you you’ll be the hero of the evening. You need people to be certain who they’re looking at from the first glance on”, Natasha went on to state matter-of-factly, turning away from the rack just enough to target Steve’s spaced out expression and decisively drag him back to the Earth with the unyielding jade green magnets of her eyes. “Blue is the right choice. Or righteous, if you prefer. Isn’t it you people who decided blue goes well with stars and stripes?” 

There was no room for doubt left: Natasha definitely had one of those field days and was on a sarcasm roll of the size of an avalanche. Steve had now a hard time remembering why it was barely moments ago that he had ben so overjoyed at her coming back to normal; he wasn’t so sure now if that was actually what he had been missing. 

Then, hardly had he managed to wince his way through each of Natasha’s snarky pokes at his zealous patriotic inclinations, he mentally smashed his face against an unexpected curve.

“Also, it goes well with your eyes, too.”

Why would she say that?

And why would she make it sound so unassuming, so regular and mundane, like she was commenting on the weather or sports news?

Was it a yet another, not-so-refined way of teasing him, or was he the weird overreacting one for going all tense about what she had just said, hearing too much into it, while she seemed to be making absolutely nothing of it?

His throat had become hot and cramped, his head fizzy – at that point he realized that even if he had known what to say, which he didn’t, he would have no means to articulate that.

With a hanger with one blue (of course, what other color would that be?) suit in one hand and a sleeve of another suit in the other, for a couple of seconds Natasha calmly looked on as he’d become the incarnation of embarrassment. Her face had that impenetrable expression which as per usual made him wonder if she genuinely enjoyed seeing him self-conscious and distressed like that, planting inside his soul those nasty seeds of distrust: was she feeling superior on such occasions? Did she need him to make a fool out of himself to make herself feel better? 

Then finally she got merciful and relieved him out of his misery. She shook her head and tweaked a micro-smile with pursed lips, apparently letting him know that this was a light-hearted joke, after all. If that indeed had been the case, this joke could use some major weight loss assistance, if Steve’s personal opinion was anything to go by.

“Alright, I’m done. Your face is telling me clearly enough that you did not understand this reference”, she quipped as she playfully grazed his shoulder before shoving the stock of cobalt blue jackets straight into his hands, leaving him no more room to say no. 

She had to be caustic even when she was cheering him up, but that was Natasha for him. 

He was reminiscing this scene and a few others that had happened so far during that pilgrimage into and through the malls, while blankly staring at the mirror of the changing room. In this dashing blue suit, undercover beneath the disguise of barrel-shaped pectorals and ironclad arms, he was only able to see Steve the puny kid from Brooklyn, playing dress-up and pathetically trying to fit in somewhere he clearly didn’t belong.

He wasn’t convinced about anything he saw in the mirror. He didn’t know if the suit befitted him or not, nor, frankly, did he care. It had been Natasha’s idea to drag him there, so it was also her job to make the call. 

Only she wasn’t currently available to accomplish that task. She had left him in the dressing room with a literal heap of shirts in his arms and vanished somewhere in a remote section of the shop to, amazingly, make sure if there weren’t any better shirts out there – as if what she had shoved onto him hadn’t been enough to give him a headache. This seemed like a harmless kind of fun for her, and Steve was admittedly relieved to see her once more energized and engaged like that. But now it was becoming honestly too much for him, with all the unnecessary, noise-like garment stimuli, and all of his time wasted stuck in a cell of lights and mirrors, time that could have been used in a million better ways. Not to mention he was getting self-conscious about the very purpose of him spending actual money on all this fancy clothing. 

As usual on such occasions – and unsurprisingly, those didn’t happen to Steve all that frequently – he had his doubts whether it was morally right to pour into some vanity item an amount of money that would suffice to feed a hungry family for days if not weeks, or pay half a month’s worth of a college tuition of a single mother’s kid. 

Natasha didn’t seem to be bothered by such concerns at all, and right now, also feeling cramped and restrained under those foreign fabrics that seemed like an armor and made it somewhat difficult to breathe, Steve had recognized a familiar sting of judgmental anger at her perceived careless social insensitivity. 

“Are we good there, sir?” The mellow voice of the sales assistant ringing from behind the curtain pulled Steve out of his head and back into the so-called real world (whatever it meant for the world to be real for a guy who had his lifetime split in two, standing by on ice while his loved ones went on settling down, growing old, and eventually dying). 

The assistant was a good-natured, if a little goofy and quite chatty, fellow in his twenties, looking precisely like one of those college students whose school expenses could be covered with the market value of one, maybe two rack stands in his workplace. With the artistically ruffled hair he owed an at least month or two overdue cut, in that dress-code-enforced shirt and tie he looked roughly as out of his depth as Steve himself. 

Apparently when the kid had been looking for a job, they had no vacancies at Starbucks or whatever the name of those crowded hip coffee shops that were now all the buzz.

“Um… yes, I’m finished”, Steve responded to the kid in his most mild-mannered tone – the poor chap wasn’t to blame for Steve’s growing frustration with the very fact of himself just being there. 

He wasn’t even telling the truth. He still had some uncountable number of shirts and jackets to try on, but he also understood he had already spent too much time blocking the changing room, and he interpreted the assistant’s checking in on him as a hint that he had already taken enough time. Which Steve was only too glad to observe, and he didn’t need the guy to make the message any clearer. It was about time to exit the booth of oppression before he would suffocate for real. 

He exited the changing room with a blend of caution and relief resembling climbing out of a trench into the light. The light association didn’t just happen by chance, as he was greeted with the beaming, clueless smile of the assistant.

“So, how is it? Which one is your pick?”, he inquired with an enthusiasm for the subject matter that obviously surpassed that of Steve.

“Uh… well, I…” Steve stammered, at a loss as to what answer was expected of him (where on earth had Natasha gone when she was most needed?) and honestly not in the mood to carry that conversation.

Luckily, the shop guy got the idea (or understood the reference) in an instant.

Or maybe not so luckily, because the actual idea that he got was devastatingly wrong.

“Okay, right, I see, say no more, let’s wait until your wife gets back, okay?”, he exclaimed with an oblivious smile, in a hopelessly casual manner. 

Before Steve could even understand and process what he had just heard, he had the most unusual feeling, one that people may get when somebody speaks out loud the words they dread so much they can’t help but instantly shove them deep into their unconscious. 

‘Your wife’… what was that even supposed to mean? And how? 

Naturally, it wasn’t the first time he and Natasha had been taken for a couple – hence the notion itself, although infinitely absurd, at the same time seemed rather dreadfully familiar – but those other times were different. They usually happened with the two of them undercover, when it was sort of their point to trick people into believing they were someone else than Captain America and the Black Widow, someone else than Steve and Natasha, simply put, well, a couple.

To have someone call Natasha _his wife_ right now, under these circumstances… it was so outrageous it made Steve paralyzed and speechless.

So much that he couldn’t even bring himself to correct the assistant’s error, instead just humming a half-hearted: “Uh-huh” and turning his eyes away, as if he had just admitted to something inexorably shameful.

The truth of the matter was – and in his heart of hearts, Steve realized that as well, much as he wanted to stay blind to it – that there was no way he could deny the assumption with his face intact. 

And never mind the morals and worldviews of the well-intentioned shop guy. Steve was unable to clear the misunderstanding for his own sake.

Natasha wasn’t his family. She wasn’t his sister, even though she may often have acted like one, stood in for one, and even though more often than not he would play pretend that she was one. If two grown-up, unrelated people of the opposite sex went shopping together, looking for anything to wear for either of them, what else could they be other than a husband and a wife? In Steve’s outdated 1940ish mindset, the answer was plain and simple: nothing. 

There were simply no excuses. 

In a way, right now Steve was going all over again through that unwelcome discovery he had made as an eleven-year old kid that he wasn’t supposed to play with Judy next door, his good friend since preschool days, because he was a boy, she was a girl, and even though he was fine with that and couldn’t see any problems, everyone around would laugh at them, pointing their fingers and apparently discussing how their friendship clearly ‘meant something’. Steve had to back down from Judy’s company to protect the lady’s reputation as well as his own honor. (To the surprise of absolutely no one, a couple of years later Bucky was too glad to get acquainted with Judy closer than Steve ever had, typically of him showing little to no concern for the petty old-fashioned – even by the mid-1930s standards – issues such as honor or reputation.)

Only this time it was much worse, because in this case they were both more or less self-aware adults, and Natasha had made her feelings for him no less than explicit. Although Steve still doubted if her notion of ‘love’ lay anywhere close to the one he was a believer of, there was no question that whatever she considered herself to be in Steve’s life, a sister or a buddy that was not.

And so it was that the innocent bystanders like this blissfully ignorant guy here had all the right to be thinking whatever they were thinking seeing Natasha and Steve together that day. It wasn’t a matter of their imagination running wild; it was simply common sense. Steve couldn’t blame them for jumping to a common sense-based conclusion now, could he? And yet, somebody had to be blamed for the shame-infused discomfort wriggling inside Steve’s guts, and Steve wasn’t willing to goo too far looking for that person – and he didn’t need to, either.

Why did Natasha drag him there in the first place? Was she unaware of what it looked like, and how it made them look? There was no way she was. It was the Black Widow they were talking about; _unaware_ simply wasn’t in her blood.

She must have done that on purpose.

After all had been said and done, all things discussed and the air cleared between them, she still wasn’t giving up, was she. 

That sounded so much like her. She wouldn’t ever take no for an answer, but she also liked to handle that in her own underhanded ways, subtly manipulating people into bending to her agenda. She wouldn’t tarnish herself with the decency to ask for what she wanted in the open, and of course she wouldn’t stoop so low as to respect what anyone else whished for.

Such as, for example, being left alone to spend the rest of their days dreaming of a life that could have been with a love that wasn’t meant to be.

A new wave of anger had come washing over Steve, threatening to sweep him away. Its raw, elemental-like power genuinely surprised him, and not just that: it frightened him. 

It was right then, with that excellently poor timing, that Natasha rematerialized beside him, looking all joyful, almost perky, clearly enjoying that weird little game Steve never asked to be pulled into. 

“Hey, finished already? Why didn’t you wait for me to see you?” In Steve’s now biased, artifice-sensitive ears her lighthearted tone sounded like pretentious chirping. 

“What difference does it make?”, he grumbled with his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, barely casting a look on her as she was approaching him. Even without watching, he could exactly sense her pull the brakes to stop three or so steps away from him, as if bouncing off of that invisible wall he had managed to erect from scratch while she had been away. “I’m sure you already know what we’re buying anyway.” He uttered that begrudging line reflexively, and only after hearing his own words could he process them and wince internally upon the realization how in spite of himself he would still end up using the ‘we’ forms. 

The discontent in his voice must have shown quite efficiently, more than he himself could ever suspect or plan. It was enough to keep Natasha, the empress of unassuming quips, silent for a while. 

She was just standing there, an arm’s length away from him, looking very convincingly puzzled at the impenetrable gulf that had suddenly emerged between them during those mere couple of minutes she was away.

Well, Steve wasn’t going to help her find the answers. It was her game they were playing, after all.

“What happened?”

Her eyes were open wide, inquisitive and watchful. They had the most peculiar, paradoxical look of a simultaneous complete ignorance and utter understanding. Like she genuinely didn’t know what had happened, but at the same time knew exactly just what had.

Steve looked away. He couldn’t bear the hole that the now seemingly radioactive green of her eyes was about to burn inside his brain. 

He even opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. To a degree, it was even a little bit funny how his thoughts were rushing with a lightning speed inside his head, but he was seemingly unable to push any of them outside his system to make them known to anyone else.

And it’s not like Natasha was the one supposed to ask questions here. It’s not like it was fair of her to have any questions when it was Steve who was staying in the dark all thanks to her. 

‘Are you lying to me?’, was what he wanted to ask her. ‘Is all this really all that it seems? Are you really being fair? Or are you playing another round of your games? Are you using me? Do you want to mold me into something I don’t want to be? Tell me, are you lying again?’

But he said nothing. 

It felt again inside his mind like one part of himself was pulling on his mental sleeve and trying to stop him. Yes, Natasha had violated his trust on many occasions and in many respects, including the status of who they were to each other; yes, they had clarified the situation and moved past it; and since then… no, Natasha had done specifically nothing that would breach their agreement from that time, nothing that would go against their mutual conclusions. 

The bitter pill to swallow here was then that Natasha was the wrong target of Steve’s anger. The correct target would be his own mistrust unbecoming of a friend he wished to consider himself to be; his paranoia unbecoming of a straightforward, honest man he aspired to be; and something else, something buried deep inside him, stored away, so ugly and shameful that he refused to remember it had even been there, much less look at it, name it or confront it. 

So he said nothing. And he hoped it would be enough.

But Natasha knew him too well. And he knew her too well, too. He could see it in the way the light in her eyes changed, the way the curve of her lips shifted from carefree and relaxed to pensive and cautious, that she had seen him through, that she had seen what he was trying to hide behind the innocuous wall of silence.

And how ironic it was that although seconds ago he seemed to be seething at Natasha’s alleged duplicity, now he was the one busy conniving and covering things up. 

“Relax, we’re done here. If you think you’re good, we can leave anytime.”

Something then crunched in Steve’s throat at the poised, a little detached tone of her voice. She didn’t sound agitated at all, or even particularly disappointed. It didn’t really seem like she cared in any way. Perhaps the truth was she didn’t, and all that Steve’s near-hysteria testified about was, as per usual, his own idiocy.

After a few lackluster exchanges about the ultimate pick among the array of blue suits and a matching shirt and tie, Natasha led the way to the cashier. Although Steve was painfully aware that this configuration didn’t help to clear the misunderstanding about the character of their relationship, the stay at that store had had him too drained to bother. 

And his favorite assistant remained as nescient as ever.

“Thank God you’re back, ma’am! You appear, you work your magic, decisions are made, problems solved”, the guy chirruped in a flirtatious manner that had Steve wondering if he really believed his customers were a couple – maybe that was another backward artifact of the pre-war mentality, but Steve couldn’t imagine himself using that tone toward a woman he thought was taken. (Or toward any woman for that matter, but that was very much a Steve- from-Brooklyn problem and not a general issue.) 

“Well, not to hide behind false modesty, I admit I do have my credentials”, Natasha responded to that with a playful smile and a laidback cadence. She was good, excellent even at this kind of random small talks, and it probably worked miracles helping her blend in during countless espionage assignments. Still, the ease with which she switched on and off the masks, the moods, the aura never ceased to make Steve uncomfortable and confused, even as he only watched on, much less when he was a participant or a target of such an exchange. 

The clerk burst with exaggerated laughter, like he had just heard the best joke in the world.

“Oh, the good wife credentials, so in demand and still you can’t buy them!”

There he went again. Steve glued his eyes to the ceiling, helplessly listening on as Natasha predictably picked the topic up.

“Still can have them, if you’re lucky and choose wise.”

“This guy right there chose wise alright!”, the guy giggled as he pointed Steve’s way with his little finger, pretending to have forgotten Steve was actually still there and could hear him… or perhaps he didn’t have to pretend, because he genuinely had. 

He wished the gullible kid from Brooklyn part of his self now of all times would keep quiet and well hidden; he wished his world-weary, been-there-done-that record would keep him from any expectations as to how the embarrassment of this situation would further unfold. And yet, here he was, hoping that Natasha would cut down on the nonsense and finish the darn payment already. Or, at least, refrain from commenting on that ridiculous remark.

Alas, Natasha continued being Natasha and she looked only too happy to play along. In fact, she almost radiated her happiness, beaming with an Oscar-worthy grin. 

“What can I say, he’s a smart guy. Right, hubby?” Adding salt to the insult, she did a full-body lean on Steve’s shoulder – it was beyond comprehension how she was always just too ready to play that part of his giggling, bubbly ‘wife’, ‘fiancee’, ‘girlfriend’ or whatever – and rubbed his shoulder in that excessively chummy, pretentious manner that made Steve reflexively wriggle.

He wouldn’t go as far as to say that this was the low point of this shopping story, as he had been finding himself pretty low for quite a couple of minutes now. Still, this was a rather extreme moment, one that made him want out like he never had before. 

It wasn’t all that much of a relief either even when they finally had left both the shop and the mall. Natasha knew better than to impose on him – sulking with his hands pressed deep in his faithful leather jacket pockets and gaze plastered to the ground, he must have looked like one big walking rainstorm cloud – so she wisely maintained her distance, walking slightly behind him, to his side, keeping about a meter and a half of space between the two of them. 

Even from that angle, however, Steve could still see her swing the shopping bags a little too gleefully for his own wretched mood. At least this helped him assuage his scruples that he had made a woman carry a load in his presence, and more than just that, the said load was actually his own stuff.

Well, she had made him buy it, so technically it was not 100% his stuff and the normal rules didn’t apply. With Natasha, they never did. 

He was just starting to feel safe and cozy in his little spaceship of dissociation when another familiar gesture from Natasha – this time it was a nudge right below the ribs – brutally dragged him back to the Earth.

Without waiting for his response, she resumed the callback game with the coy question:

“Still uncomfortable?”. 

In the corner of his eye Steve could all too vividly see the familiar, self-congratulatory look of smugness woven against the too-perfect symmetry of her face.

Dear God, a repeated conclusion spontaneously came over him on the loop: even if a couple of hours ago he had been praying for Natasha to come back, he really had no clue if this was the particular version of Natasha whose return he was applying for. They really were right when they would say, ‘be careful what you wish for’.

And yet, Steve couldn’t help but instantly reply with a match:

“That’s not exactly the word I would use”.

His mind wandered off to that faraway time and place – in another mall, no less; it occurred to him that these church-like spaces of modern man’s cult must have been cursed in how they seemed to attract this sort of scenarios every other time he happened to pass them by, almost invariably with Natasha dragging him through this minefield – when they had first had this exchange. 

He could feel his body freeze and recoil at the unwanted recollection of the pressure of her lips against his. He could still remember it clearly as if it had happened mere seconds rather than years before: the velvety softness, the chilling sensuousness, the warmth so honest like she had meant it – even though Steve had been aware all along that it was nothing but an act, a mockery even, one she had conducted through an unscrupulous trampling on his boundaries and values.

Worse still, he could now still remember just as clearly the bitter sting of shame that had taken over him on that moment. The dread that had come down on him along with that slightest tingle of suspicion that somewhere at his heart of hearts, he may actually have, lo!, _enjoyed_ this. 

And also how he had appeared infinitely stupid in his own eyes for feeling like a cheater untrue to a ninety-year old lady who had lived a full, happy life without him. 

Meanwhile, immune to the intricacies of a boy-scout’s overly sensitive inner life as ever, Natasha grinned and replied with another self-satisfied: “That’s what I thought”. 

Steve had earnestly intended to keep his irritation non-verbal, but it seemed like she had left him no choice. 

“Why are you even in such good mood?”, he asked in a half-exasperated, half-genuinely curious tone. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”, she answered matter-of-factly, and Steve was actually quite conscious of his own relief that she didn’t seem in the slightest to have been discouraged or hurt by his exaggerated moodiness. “I felt like getting out of the house for the first time since I can’t bother to remember when. I got to hang out with you. And whatever you say, picking your clothes is always fun. So no, I have no reasons to complain, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It was the strangest thing: at the same time he was eased by the thought that the situation at the mall hadn’t soured her spirits the way it had with his, and yet angered – at how insensitive she was to what she had just done.

He thought they had an agreement. He thought they had discussed this, that she knew that he wasn’t interested, and had made an obligation to let this go. He thought ‘letting this go’ included avoiding insensitive jokes and innuendos about them being a couple, or acting as a couple, or whatever. 

He thought…

“… You can be so selfish.” Even inside his mind he had run out of words, so all he felt capable of doing now was to sum it all up out loud. Even if the result was him turning hurtful toward her yet again. 

Still, all Natasha did was instantly agree with a strangely complacent “Amen to that”, as unmoved as if she had confirmed an innocuous remark about the weather or prices of petrol going up. 

She didn’t seem to mind his opinion, or anything at all. It was genuinely like she was back to her old self, back to those times when she hadn’t given a damn about what he thought of her. 

Maybe there was some reason to it. Maybe that was their way to go from now on. He had acknowledged her feelings for him, and she had acknowledged he wouldn’t be able to return them. What else was left for them to do, then? Tiptoe around each other and pretend the issue never existed? 

Actually that would have been the optimal solution, if Steve had been the one to decide. But apparently Natasha saw things differently. Confronting the truth with unabashed sarcasm rather than avoiding the matter and press it down into heaps of awkward silence evidently helped her feel better. 

As if having mind-read him – again, like she always would – Natasha clarified her stance with an upfront, deadpan:

“Don’t worry. You can stay my husband only within the four walls of that store. Other than that, no one needs to know.” 

Steve bristled and tilted his head to the side, warping his mouth in a half-smiling grimace. He felt defeated at how unbelievable, incorrigible she was. 

“They sure don’t”, he admitted with a hearty eyeroll. 

It amazed him in a way how she was able to poke fun at all this, disengaging herself from the feelings she said that she had for him. He should have been the one not to be moved by these innuendos; she was supposedly the one who should have cared.

Was it really because whatever she actually meant by ‘love’, it lay so far apart from Steve’s comprehension of what love was and should have been?

Or was it because after months if not years of struggling, plotting, manipulating and attempting all sorts of other underhanded ways to get from Steve what she wanted, she had finally moved past it and on to the acceptance of how things were, and would always be, between them? 

Was it so while – with all the absurdity of this paradox – Steve, the one who supposedly _cared less_ , the one simply _not interested_ , remained stuck in the middle of the turmoil, bound by guilt and the unspeakable sense of failure?

Failure as a friend, and failure as a man – because everyone and everything in this brave new world of the next century kept insisting there was something wrong with him for choosing to stay faithful to the one true love of his life. 

And the mockery of these failures seemed to attack him from every corner. Even those bags carried by Natasha’s slender hands, yes, even they snickered at him: _The only woman that can carry a grown man’s clothes is his wife_ . 

Apart from how a woman shouldn’t be carrying a man’s stuff in the first place.

But then, this was Natasha, so rules didn’t apply. 

After all, if Natasha herself didn’t care about the rules, why should he? 

And yet, care he did, to his own chagrin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exhausted with the unexpectedly emotional afternoon with Natasha, Steve locks himself off in his room and drifts away into his favorite "what-if" fantasy, which only ends up increasing his sense of dread and self-loathing.

This afternoon with Natasha had Steve more drained than an all-night mission with intense fighting and no second to rest. 

Lying in his bed, he seemed to only have enough strength left to keep staring vacantly on the ceiling. It must have been this rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions that Natasha had put him through, deliberately or not; he could only hope that him ending their meetings in such a state would not become a rule, or he wouldn’t be able to stay at her side as a friend he hoped and had promised he would be. 

He couldn’t even quite put his finger on what it was that had him so exhausted. Was it her constantly reminding him, in one way or another, that she still had feelings for him and those feelings kept going strong? Or was it really the way they looked together, all the wrong ideas they projected into the world simply by showing up together? Or maybe it was his own helplessness over the way those scenarios would unfold, the way he’d cluelessly walk right into them to his own embarrassment and confusion, which sometimes even felt like humiliation. 

Or, perhaps, all that happened to him over the course of the afternoon reminded him of Peggy and made him miss her, as simple as that.

He had those days every now and then. Sometimes they happened with no apparent reason, and sometimes, like today, there would be a clear cause. Like a sudden rainstorm in the middle of a bright summer sky, memories allied with unrealizable visions would come down, flooding him in the sweetest torture he gladly surrendered himself to. 

And it was those visions that were especially treacherous. Because he was a reasonable man with his senses intact – or, at least, that was what he liked to tell himself, what he preferred to believe – so all the while he would be perfectly aware how unattainable those visions were, how they belonged to a different reality, a different life he would never be permitted to live, a life cut short long before it actually ended. And it was precisely that awareness of the impossible that allowed him to rationalize himself indulging in the fantasies of a life that had been irreversibly stolen away from him. 

In his heart of hearts, he realized how toxic and self-destructive that little habit of his was. He knew that it was his link to a dead shut chapter of his past, like a spiritualist séance giving him an illusion that he could still conjure that life back. 

And indeed, that may have been the most dangerous part of his seemingly innocuous vice. He kept the fantasy alive, he fed it and groomed it, and in return, the fantasy seduced him into those altered, trance-like states of the mind in which, despite all the facts, he seemed to be mistaking the fantasy for a dream, in some unexplainable way believing it still could come true, believing that by persisting with it, he would somehow wish it into being. 

On such days, he liked to imagine the life he would have had with Peggy down to the most minute details. He even had a special timeline he used for that, the ‘proper timeline’ as he sometimes half-consciously called it. 

According to the proper timeline, then, his crash in the Atlantic never happened. Instead, he returned to Peggy safe and sound, and eligible to start with her the life he had shyly been envisioning for the two of them even as the world war was waging. In other words, in the proper timeline he resumed his life in 1945, or actually it had never been interrupted in the first place. In the real-time, ‘improper’ timeline, he woke up in 2011, and so it followed that the ‘improper’ 2011 was his ‘proper’ 1945. According to the fantasy calendar inside his head, then, seven years into his ‘improper’ 21st century life, now was 1952.

1952 sounded like a wonderful year. They would have been married for at least six years by then, which means they jumped the wedding rings just after the war ended – because really, why wait any longer, if they’d waited for each other all their lives? Steve was sure they would have hopped before the altar as soon as the dust after the last fights had settled, and maybe after Peggy had given him a few lessons to make sure he was now a passable partner on the dancefloor, which admittedly may have taken a bit longer than for the country to recover from the V-day celebrations. 

The kids, however, would still have been quite young – according to Steve’s conviction, with that they could, or actually even should have waited. The two of them would have been busy helping the country up after the years of the wartime bleeding out, and of course Howard Stark would have needed them in founding SHIELD – this time preferably they would all have made sure to prevent any and all Hydra infiltration. 

In other words, in these first years they would have had different priorities than starting a family. And this applied especially to Peggy, although Steve himself wouldn’t be so brave – or short-sighted, or, simply put, stupid – to beget a child while knowing that his mind, heart, time and energy wouldn’t be 100% devoted to becoming the best father he possibly could. This, however, wouldn’t have been about him. Peggy had worked too hard and sacrificed too much to prove herself in the man’s world of military and special services. To be treated on an equal footing with men, to be given the same chances that they were, she always had to be twice as good as the best of them, always two steps ahead. Those would have been no conditions to get pregnant and have children – this would only have sent the message to her detractors that a woman’s place was at home feeding, cleaning and babysitting. 

Not that Steve felt he would have been in any rush himself to have children right away. His life had been spinning ridiculously fast since those shots of super-soldier serum transformed his body into something he still didn’t always recognize. In a way, ironically, he had become a super-human-doing rather than a human being, with all the madness of living at the front line preventing him from ever stopping to think who he was now, where at, and who with. He definitely would have needed that time to breathe, then – and no less to simply spend time with his gorgeous wife, get to know her better away from the incessant peril of the warzone. 

But following that, after their romance and friendship would have developed in a way it allegedly did with people who met under normal circumstances of peace, for sure they both would eventually decide that it was time to move on to the next stage of becoming a family. The very prospect got him excited and humbled at the same time, blushing like a maiden. 

Himself – as a father…? The father of Peggy Carter’s children, at that…? Even the thought itself was almost too hard to bear. Way to go for little Steve from Brooklyn, the butt of all jokes, the perennial scapegoat of all the bullies. Becoming a father, a respectable figure with a personal obligation to raise another human being and bring it into the community, seemed like more of a feat than putting on some genetically enhanced muscles and don a Captain America uniform.

Frankly, the role of a father seemed so unrealistic, so out of reach to the fatherless, socially incompetent dupe that he was, that in his heart of hearts he couldn’t shake the awful sense he wouldn’t have been able to become one even if he and Peggy had been given the chance to spend their lives together.

Then again – dupe or not, at least he had that so-called imagination, those so-called artistic sensibilities of his. No fantasy was too much for his wandering mind to handle if he only set his mind to it. 

Consequently, nothing could stop him from seeing his sweet home he had raised with Peggy, the cozy pastoral-like life they had made for each other and their two lovely kids they would have had in the alternative reality of 1952. 

The kids were the standard dream home a boy and a girl couple. Steve was pretty sure – although he had no idea why, apparently it was just one of those famed ‘gut feelings’ – that the girl was older. Maybe it was because she had to be the responsible, reasonable one to take good care of her absent-minded little brother. Her name was Sarah, after Steve’s late mother, and in 1952 she would have been about four. She would also have had her namesake grandmother’s blonde hair, although wavy like Peggy’s, and calm blue eyes, thoughtful beyond her years. Calling baby girls ‘little angels’ was about as cliché as it could get, but when Steve pictured their daughter, he could not think of her in any other terms. He could picture her quiet but eloquent, disciplined and sometimes a bit self-serious, but vigorous and a joy to be around all the same, with plenty of energy and physical stamina bubbling underneath that seemingly polished, good girl surface. 

She wasn’t your typical daddy’s girl, either. She was too independent and too strong-willed for that. Needless to say, she took it all after her mother.

The boy, however, was a quite different matter. He was some two years younger than Sarah and his name was usually Michael, after Peggy’s own prematurely deceased brother. Steve sometimes thought that if he had had a son, he would probably have named him James, and it would have been the case with all the more likelihood around 1950, with Steve still convinced that Bucky had fallen to his death back there on that fateful train ride. Still, he probably owed it to Peggy to let her take her turn in naming their child after a lost loved one (and how they could pick their children’s names all in honor of some bereavement also spoke volumes about the kind of life he and Peggy had had until that point). ‘James’ would likely end up as Michael’s second name… or be saved for the next time – how blushable this prospect even sounded! 

So, anyhow, on that afternoon inside Steve’s head there was a two-year old toddler named Michael, sitting quietly in a corner of the living room with those dreamy hazel eyes, focused with all his tiny might on the impossible challenge of holding a crayon straight inside his puffy little hand, trying to imitate the elaborate movements of his father’s hand as it slid up and down the sketchbook, bringing to life houses and people and horses, and likewise the sky, the sun and the stars, weaving them into stories for the children’s bedtime enjoyment. Little Mike may not have yet had the ability to command the drawing tools inside his hand, yet what he lacked in dexterity he made up in determination – as one may be tempted to say, he could do this all day, never minding the defeat after defeat when his best-intentioned parents time and again failed miserably to recognize what Mike’s next makeshift masterpiece was supposed to represent. Mistaking Dumbo for a vacuum cleaner or Sarah for a tree, while an incessant source of entertainment for the family, seemed damaging to Mike’s self-esteem and self-respect, which he expressed through crying tantrums straight from a terrible two wave. His agony never lasted too long, though. In no time, he was more than ready to get up and try again. 

I could actually learn a thing or two from him, Steve thought – and then he shuddered upon realizing that, again, he was investing emotionally in imaginary interactions with a nonexistent son he never had with Peggy. 

Then, the shivers only got deeper when he caught himself, _again_ , sitting up in the bed with a sketchbook in his lap, pouring these fantasies of an unreal life onto another sheet of paper which was to expand the ever-increasing pile of pictures, those testimonies of Steve’s refusal to say goodbye to his 20th century never-was life. 

This little vice of his, this secret escape route he had indulged in since he woke up from his decades-long coma in the SHIELD headquarters, had fed him with a strange blend of shame and pride. Shame, because he was living a fantasy and refusing to cope with the reality of loss like a grown-up man should; and pride, because he felt like in this way he was staying true to Peggy and the sacred vision of their future together, never stooping so low as to completely say yes to the present. 

As he learnt during his crash courses in contemporary history, the later decades of 20th century had brought this new disease to plague a large part of humanity, called the drug addiction. It resembled alcoholism, or ‘drunkenness’, as it was more frequently called in Steve’s times, in that it got you dependent on a substance that if only for a while alleviated the pain of facing reality and covered you in the soft, cotton-like mist of forgetfulness. It would start out innocently enough, an occasional shoot just to cheer oneself on, and then steadily progress until you couldn’t get by without it – or, to put it more accurately, until you couldn’t really live with or without it.

Sam had told him that this happened a lot to war veterans who had lost too much during the service, or sacrificed too much of the life they believed they had outside the army. They would get back home only to find there was no more home to go back to, sometimes because the people and the place weren’t the same anymore, but more often because they themselves weren’t the same people who had left to fight for the stars and stripes. So they would try to medicate the pain and emptiness by those semi-magical substances: powders, pills, injections, you name it. They were pretty reliable in how they offered the relief of oblivion, erasing the unwanted present and conjuring the illusion of an unchanged past. Still, they came with a caveat: once they wore out, which they inevitably did, the very isolation, the very lonely hopelessness they had been employed to remedy struck back with a multiplied force, pushing the user deeper and deeper to the edge. 

As much Steve wasn’t boastful about it – ‘profoundly ashamed’ would be a more precise expression here –he couldn’t stay blind to the obvious likeness. Yes, his fantasies of the life he would have lived with Peggy were his kind of drug. 

The agonizing pain of waking up from the narcotic trance was the currency he paid in for the sweet few seconds of abuse. That pain paralleled the pain of his literal waking up in 2010 to a crowded wasteland of what used to be his home. 

In the back of his mind, he knew it was just terribly wrong to keep indulging in this longing. If asked upfront, he probably would be unable to answer exactly just why it should be so wrong, exactly what harm it did to him or anyone else – still, it was the closest thing he had to a secret, something he would react to with a shit! if it was to be found out by anyone. This kind of stuff was pretty alarming – and not like him at all.

What would Peggy have to say about this? What comment would she make, seeing him like this, drowning in the fantasies of the life they never had, hiding it before those few people that still cared about him? 

Although Steve couldn’t quite put his head around it, he did know for sure she wouldn’t like it – and wouldn’t hesitate to let him know about it in no uncertain terms. 

A sharp spasm of pain pricked him out of the blue underneath his ribs, literally forcing him to sit up and cover his head with his arms. 

_Will this ever end?_ , he asked himself in a numb, resigned tone. It was the question he would still find himself asking every now and then. Right after he had woken up in the 21st century he could hardly go an hour without struggling with this desperate unknown. Of course, he had since adjusted himself reasonably well. He had got on with his resumed life with moderate success – at times he felt he might even as much as blend in and pass for a 21st-century native. But then, that question would inevitably return, taking him by surprise with its piercing suddenness. 

Maybe it was precisely because for some time now the question had been so unpredictable, so erratic in its occurrence patterns, that it also felt even more frustrating, dealing blows that felt even harder. Although whining was the last thing on Steve’s mind, something which seemed most contemptible to do, the pain was so organic he couldn’t hold his internal scream down. 

He liked to think he didn’t have any preconceived notions about that ‘end’ that he was wondering about. Deep down he did realize, however, that out of the three conceivable solutions: accepting the present, returning to the past or else rewinding the bygone, or dying – it was the last option that shamefully attracted him the most. 

The first option he refused, and the second was refused to him. To be put out of his misery was the only logical way to go. Strictly speaking, it was also the option he had chosen in the first place back in 1945, the moment he decided to crash the plane, choosing to ensure the safety of the world over placing his bets on his future with Peggy. 

Every now and then, he remembered death had been his first choice, and he also remembered that he probably should see it through at some point.

Cowering and trudging like he had suffered some actual physical injury in the lower part of his chest, barely holding in a pained whizz, he crawled out of his bed and moved begrudgingly toward the still unpacked shopping bags, left right where he had tossed them by the doorstep upon his return.

He didn’t like those bags, and whatever was bundled inside them, at all. Now even more than an hour or two before, they looked to him like a symbol of option one, of the world trying to mold him into submission, forcing him to pretend like living the here and now was something he had agreed to do out of his free will.

What he hated the most about all this was the realization of his own compliance, of himself going along with the notion of option one. He had simply entered his 21st century life the way it was expected of him, like the dumb obedient monkey soldier he was. He had been telling himself it was the brave and selfless thing to do, when in fact what his motivation boiled down to was the exact opposite – cowardice and selfishness. He was too much of a coward to take his own life, and he was too much of an egoist, wedded to his brave soldier image, to reject this life which had rightfully belonged to Peggy and should have stayed with her alone. 

That afternoon, he probably had taken all of this out on Natasha. His reaction was clearly not proportional to whatever she had actually said or done; he had simply made her pay for the mess inside his head.

And now, only now, he was really starting to feel accurately awful about it. For all the care and affection he claimed he had for her, he was being a joke of a friend.

Back there in that clothes store she had seemed to him an embodiment of the world pressuring him into picking option one, or the world shaming him for not being completely committed into moving on. It was Steve’s sore spot, and he had overreacted. Natasha joking about being his wife, outside observers casually taking her for one – it really had got to him, the resentment fueled by a bottomless sense of inadequacy and loneliness.

But this wasn’t her fault. Out of all people, she’d have been the last to choose to make him feel this way. 

Out of all people, she may have also been the only one to really understand him and the way he saw things, even if it was at odds with what she wanted for herself. 

She understood perfectly what it meant to struggle to live a life that you had been dealt, as opposed to your own choice, like in a foul game of cards. The way she acted at that store, the way she enjoyed the misunderstanding had little to do with Steve – it was simply her own attempt at moving on and trying to reclaim her life, even if on terms she had no say in, much like he had no say about the terms of living the life he had now. 

Wasn’t there even a slight bit of envy among all the contorted mayhem whirling inside Steve’s head? They both had their serious issues under the vast label of ‘moving on’, Natasha’s case being objectively more traumatic and damaging than anything Steve had been through – yet she also had the guts, the heart and the hope to at least try to build something anew from the rubble, while Steve would go on stubbornly defending the rubble like it had been the only matter he could acknowledge as his own life.

Yes, that was it. Natalya Romanova, an erstwhile deadly KGB operative and a ruthless intelligence agent accountable for a sizeable list of rather atrocious crimes – still had more guts, heart and hope than Uncle Sam’s poster boy, that paragon of American virtues called Captain America. 

Although this statement would have made a great punchline, the realness of it deprived it of any and all humor. 

Steve sat heavily back down on the bed, letting out a flustered sigh. He felt a silly urge to call Natasha right away, for no deeper reason than to make sure she still was around. She was his lifeline, one of the few ties to this new, unchosen life of his that kept him sane and made it all bearable. He really wanted to make sure that his childish pouting somehow hadn’t alienated the person who knew how to remedy his isolation and misery like nobody else could. 

But then, he was unable to really call her. What was he supposed to tell her? The truth? _I’m sorry I was being a jerk, but I intend to stay this way, so please bear with me_? Spelt out in the open, it made him sound even more pathetic than when confined in the nonverbal corners of his mind.

Why bother calling to state the obvious, to point out a status quo which neither was fully happy with, but both carried on putting up with as the best of the lesser evils available? 

Of course, there would have been an even deeper truth behind the call – the _I just wanted to make sure you’re still there because I can’t afford to lose you_ kind of truth – but naturally, this sort of a bold statement wouldn’t get squeezed through Steve’s vocal chords even in his wildest dreams. 

And he wasn’t holding back because he was being kind. At least that much he wasn’t ignorant of. Considering Natasha’s feelings for him and their shared history, he could guess that hearing such words would make her happy, at least relatively to anything else he was able to say to her at the time. Had he been kinder and braver, he would be able to tell her that straight away without holding back and overconsidering anything. 

But no, he was chickening out. He was scared of exposing himself like that, of showing all the cards and leaving the next move to Natasha, passively waiting for her to do whatever she would see fit. 

He was scared that she would react to his self-indulgent confession in the only reasonable way, by telling him one way or another: _I’m done giving you my love on your terms, putting up with your shit, letting you switch me on and off whenever you please like I’m your comfort toy. I’m not giving you anything if you don’t want it all_.

Because all this was exactly what he was doing to her, and that was completely unfair, completely base, and thoroughly convenient – and also the last thing a friend, as he liked to brashly call himself, would do. 

Funny how he should have been scared of losing her when all the while he was so convinced he didn’t care about his own life and really had nothing left to lose. 

Tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t remember feeling any more helpless even as the pitiful scrawny kid daydreaming about making a difference while taking another beating in another Brooklyn back alley. 

With a spatter of genuine desperation he grabbed the ominously silent phone, but all that heroic gesture amounted to was a neutered, placating text:

“Thanks for today. Take care. Talk to you soon”.

The final part was less of a statement and more of his insecure wishing that this indeed would be the case.


End file.
